Guess who said this:
“News providers had better get web-savvy, stop lecturing their audiences, become places for conversation and destinations where bloggers and podcasters congregate to engage our reporters and editors in more extended discussions.”
(a) Noam Chomsky
(b) Naomi Klein
(c) Paul Jay
(d) Rupert Murdoch
(e) All of the Above
Seems to me the answer could very well be a, b, or c. Seems to me that if you asked them, anyone of them would likely agree with the ideas contained in this statement. Wish I had the chance to ask them. Wait, I do! That’s the wonder of the times in which we live, — a time of “participatory journalism”.
Okay, so who said it? The answer is Rupert Murdoch (at the American Society of Newspaper Editors). Whoa. Now that makes a thinking person pause doesn’t it? Rupert Murdoch is encouraging the use of blogs and podcasts, and talking about having conversations?
This begs a few questions. The first that come to my mind are: How will Murdoch and his ilk attempt to control the “conversation” that he speaks of — the way “they” have controlled “conversation” for too many of our lifetimes? Which leads me to ask, how will “they” attempt to control the flow of information on the net? Notice that I don’t ask whether — but how.
It seems a given that “they” will once again try to control what “we” know and how much “we” know. How are “they” already controlling it?
Is this really a time of “we-media” because of the net? Is this really a time of free flowing information and participatory journalism? I think the answers are mainly yes and yes. I think and believe that as long as “we” are vigilant about the sources of what we read and participate in, as long as we are information savvy in the same way “we” have been under the control of the Murdochs of this world – that the net in all of its manifestations can be an incredible way forward for those of us who want to change the world… like canadian dimensioners do!
I also don’t believe for a moment that the net will replace newspapers, magazines, or books anymore than television has. I also don’t believe that because “we” are participating more in the creation and the consumption of news that this will replace professional journalists. “We” need professional journalists in the same way we need say, doctors. Drugstores (sorry “pharmacies”) and the availability of bandaids and cough syrup did not result in fewer medical professionals!
Carrying the analogy forward, “we” are not at the mercy of the medical profession the way we once were. In the same way, “we” are not at the mercy of the Murdoch’s the way we once were! Yay, for “we” media. Yay, for those who participate, both professionals and the rest of the citizenry. Yay for CITIZEN JOURNALISM!!
Janette Watt is a proud-brazen-instigator, a value-driven political thinker, a social critic and an aspiring dissident writer. Her writing and her presentations are informed by her life experiences as an activist lawyer, an activist educator and active member of the human race. She is the owner/president of Watt Communications. Read other posts by Janette Watt.
