Journalism history in the making
A Washington Post discussion panel on the subject of Ethics and Interactivity in the wake of the paper closing blog comments has just concluded. Read the transcript here. Good stuff, but Jay Rosen had the quote of the day.
Try to realize this, everyone. The mentality of one-way, one-to-many media has been accumulating, layer-on-layer for more than 250 years of press history. The dramatic and surprising shift away from those conditions, which we are living though now, is going to be one long, tough, brutal, noisy, wrenching thing; but in the end it is bringing greater democracy to the means of information, and to the people who have always informed us.
Journalism historians, I believe, will view this incident as a turning point in mainstream media’s interaction with the public, so I think it will end as a net positive — despite the paper’s initial handling thereof.
