I like to read the technology journal The New Atlantis, and this issue there is an excerpt from Glenn Reynolds’ (Instapundit.com) new book, An Army of Davids. I encourage you to read it. The article is titled “The Rise of Guerrilla Media,” and it’s full of intriguing ideas, like this one:
An organization that put together a network of freelance journalists under a framework that allowed for [a] reputation rating [like Amazon.com’s], and that paid based on the number of pageviews and the ratings that each story received, would be more like a traditional newspaper than a blog, but it would still be a major change from the newspapers of today. Interestingly, it might well be possible to knit together a network of bloggers into the beginnings of such an organization. With greater reach and lower costs than a traditional newspaper, it might bring something new and competitive to the news business.
The inherent limitation in blogging, as I see it, is the fact that it’s just me, or just you, out there trying to gather facts and information and publish as a hobby. We don’t have reporters we can send out, and no one has figured out a way to make money at it, although Bill Dennis has certainly tried.
This would probably never work, but I had this crazy idea. Imagine several local bloggers uniting to form a freelance journalistic cooperative. I know we all have links to each other now, but suppose we had a single site — a meta-blog, if you will — where we all submitted original news copy and analysis about Peoria. For the masses who don’t have the time or inclination to go blog-hopping, this would provide a one-stop source for alternative Peoria media (or “we-dia,” as Jim Treacher calls citizen journalism).
If it became a popular source for news, we could sell advertising and split the revenue in some mutually-agreeable way (number of hits like Reynolds suggested, or number of contributions, or something). Why, it would almost be like having a second newspaper in town, only we wouldn’t have the overhead of newsprint and distribution.
Like I said, it’s a crazy idea, but fun to kick around just for the heck of it. What do you think? Potentially workable or laughably implausible? “Strength in numbers,” or “too many cooks spoil the broth”?
Various gaming sites operate under this concept and do reasonably well for it. Not everyone has something inspiring to say every day but a team of folks could do this and benefit from a peer review before it hits the front page.
One example is http://www.corpnews.com/
Wouldn’t that be Bill’s Blog Peoria that never really worked either?
Blogging’s a fad like everything else on the Internet.
I agree that the stereotypical LiveJournal/Xanga blog (i.e. ‘so 2day my cat did teh cuuuutest thing. and i luv billy. yay!) is a fad. I’m strongly of the opinion that serious, topical blogs are here to stay, in one form or another. Intelligent people demand discussion, which is something that traditional news media cannot provide.
NBC Nightly News will continue to satisfy many people, but blogs improve the delivery of news in two ways.
1) NBC, CNN, et al do research before they go to press or go on air, but we don’t get to see that research. Blog-style delivery gives the potential for discussion and analysis that just can’t be fit into centrally-published sound bites and headlines that have the incentive to put profit ahead of journalistic integrity.
2) The proliferation of blogs allows us to get an almost infinite number of viewpoints on any given issue. The mass media, like the two major political parties, is pretty well in the center of the political spectrum. Grassroots journalism allows access to many more viewpoints on both the left and the right. Unfortunately, there are classes of people that are mostly left out, even with blog-style journalism; notably, the poor.
Thanks, Mahkno. That site you linked to is a good example of what it could be like. It would still be able to accomodate anonymous bloggers. I like what you said about peer review. Articles that aren’t time-sensitive could be saved for a day (or so) so that other members of the team could review them and make suggestions before they’re published.
Ryan, it’s not like Blog*Peoria. It would be more like a Blogger site that has a team of writers (Peoria bloggers) rather than a single voice. All the articles would be in one place instead of being redirected to each blogger’s personal site.
Check out Greensboro101.com — it’s a prototype of the kind of thing you envision.
The strength of blogging is that it is individualistic. Unedited. The kind og group blog C.J. discusses and I once envisioned would require editing. Assignments. Consistency. And, yes, proofreading. I might as well be working for a newspaper if I wanted to do that.
I’ve given up on the idea of leveraging a blog into a real news site, where I went out and covered stories. I am just a commentator, trying to affect some change. I simply do not have the time or energy to do it in my spare time.
Folks, committing journalism is hard work. It takes time to create those short articles you see in the JS. And I’m not just talking about the reporters.
A real Internet-only news site is going to have to involve reporters, editors and some financial investment. Or, it will be what newspapers envolve into once they realize their readers know how to use the Web and that can save money and the lives of co untless trees.
Blogging can be examined as the pulse of what people are thinking on any given subject in a specific State, City, or Town. Polls should be a clear indication of just how important ones beliefs are. To creat public policy or to affect policy change, I believe blogging can be an effective tool.
I support the idea of creating a blogging news media. This could be a great way to get more people involved in the decision making process, especially when it comes to policies, and development in our City. (Peoria)
Dream my friend….dream.
My message when I started attending Bill’s Blogger Bashes was that citywide WiFi was coming and this was going to be a great opportunity for citizen journalists. One of the visions Chad and I had for the Peoria Wireless project is to have a geographically aware portal that displays news and events from the community you connect in. We’re actually getting some money to do this for a few historical buildings in the city. If you connect near the Frank Llyod Wright Little House on Moss or the former site of the Unitarian Church downtown, you’ll be able to take a virtual tour of those buildings.
Unfortunately, my effort to get support form Bradley’s journalism instructors and Continuing Education program for citizen journalism are undercut every time Bill posts images of girls with an inflatable penis. There is funding available for these types of outreach programs through Bradley. I wouldn’t be surprised if we couldn’t get the Journal Star involved… but neither organization is going to touch the project if they think Bill is going to be posting eye candy and snarky put downs.
http://mediabloggers.org/ has some great information and guidelines for citizen journalists. If you’re serious about this, let’s get together and see if we can’t put something together to test the waters. I’d really like to start spreading to gospel to neighborhood organizations about affordable hosting providers that include Content Management Systems like PostNuke and Drupal in their $6 a month service. Show how multiple neighborhood news and event pages can be combined into a news page for a larger area.