Once upon a time, the news was something big media gathered, filtered, and delivered to a respectful audience.
Heh. The biggest big-media story today is the rise of
the journalist-blogger. First with the conventions, then with the
ongoing Rathergate, newscasters and dead-tree pundits want you to know
that news is being reported–and even made–by just plain folks.
OK, not every Juan (or
Jenny) Q Public has email, let alone broadband access to blogworld.
Still, it’s exciting that more of us can now grab
front-row seats when news is made–maybe even hop into the onstage
spotlight.
So what’s the backstory of this “new” phenomenon? What dangers and opportunities does it bring? No three-minute
soundbite or fluffy op-ed can tell you.
But blogger/journalist Dan
Gillmor can, in his new book We the Media. It’s full of decisive moments and smalltown heroes–an exciting,
principled, savvy, and practical page-turner. If you haven’t read it
yet, you are missing out.
I met Dan at Bloggercon II
and got a free copy of his book. And I was thrilled to see I’m one of
the many people he cites as a source, though that’s probably because of
my live-blogging Hoder rather than for anything useful I said over dinner at Legal Seafood. Is this a
proper disclosure of possible conflicts? Well, I’m no journalist, just a
hard-working blogger.