Where is currentbuzz.org ?

Move with me to my new blogging site. You can find my archives here, but my new stuff is at currentbuzz.org If you live around Chicago or are interested in community and citizen journalism please take a read at CreatingCommunityConnections.org a site developed to publish local and hyperlocal stories about all of Chicago's great neighborhoods. No money stipends for writers (yet) but it is professionally edited. We invite photos, stories, news and schmooze.

For Web 2. presentation

My blog is currently suffering from a technology problem -- I can't convert it to the new blogger beta and I haven't had time to get a new version up and running, but the URL will be the same when it is functional once more. So, for today, let's check out Web 2.0 by starting with jeteye and a jetpak I have been creating.

Reuters on trust and citizen journalism

News organizations must realize everyone is both a potential partner and competitor. A 19-year-old sitting in a dorm room cranking out gossip, a well-established journalist blogging for her news organization, or a respected academic all have equal right to have a voice. Whether they have an equal voice is another matter.

How do we know what it "real" and what we can trust? Even Reuters has been fooled by photogs who re-touched work. The key is to "triangulate" and locate several views or sources. The echo-chamber nature of blogs means you have to look to where someone got information so that you aren't just reading the same post as repeated by many cut and pastings. Reuters relies on "Reuters Trust Principles of independence, freedom from bias, and integrity are at the core of what we do and what we believe in" and they fell back on them when the doctored work was discovered. They are working with software companies to better detect fraud mechanically, but the blogosphere (I think they mean "transparency, openess") and trusting their viewer/users can be correction control mechanisms.

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Trust and Citizen journalism. One view from Reuters.

Reuters CEO Discusses 'Trust' and Citizen Journalism

News organizations must realize everyone is both a potential partner and competitor. A 19-year-old sitting in a dorm room cranking out gossip, a well-established journalist blogging for her news organization, or a respected academic all have equal right to have a voice. Whether they have an equal voice is another matter.

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Journalism Education --perspectives from students

Rebecca McKinnon at Berkman at Harvard gives an "unlecture" on what should journalism education and schools be teaching. She asks, what do j schools do in terms of "added value?" Can j schools innovate and teach new skills and then not frustrate students who end up in news orgs where the CMS is old and there is a bias against innovation. J school might be a "sandbox" where experimentation and trying out new things is a good role for school, even if it will cause cognitive dissonance in the students. The teaching needs to go beyond just e-reading. Students need to be constructing experiences by connecting sites they read and using them, not just reading. How can journalists resolve the tension between the old journalism of me the author and expert with today's conversational style of communication? When everyone lectured, then lecture worked. When people start interacting and involving community, then lecturing won't work. "You will have to less of a prima dona about everything going through you." So, going into journalism to be famous or important is not an effective plan, especially in the networked world. Public wants journalism to serve public discourse by getting information the public needs. Do you serve by lecturing or by presenting voices and information and facilitating the discussion by the community? In China, the pro journos who are censored will work with bloggers who can bring attention to things in MSM. This is journalism for the right reasons even if it isn't the way things have always been done. As a professional, she didn't find much value in j ed and what it added. Now as journalism educator, living in a working world where hires are young web savvy techies or seasoned pros, and the middle group is out of luck and being overlooked by news organizations. News orgs are hiring j grads who have the web savvy and web experience, from making web pages to having exp'y writing online. Journalism educators say they are training young people with serious news orientation, including a sense of ethics and news values but these people get hired to do fluff infotainment. In the world of citizen journos, bloggers, and new media, is there a role or what is the role of professional journalists? Suggested roles for Journalism education: Research & development, experimentation -- McKinnon calls news that corporate news media won't touch but is news, "low-hanging fruit" ripe for student journalists to pursue. J schools can go after the low-hanging fruit in novel ways as through citizen journalism or blogging. J schools need to address how students can work as entrepreneurs, but this is difficult and not traditional McKinnon's master's students will blog, but must get others to link to their site. They must look at each other's work and react to others' work as well as just writing or broadcasting without regard to interactivity or feedback aka community online. News orgs now have really good Web 1 sites -- but now we are in a Web 2.0 world. She notes that Word Press CMS is more flexible than Reuters pro system. Web employees of media companies may be stuck in a pre-RSS, UGC world.