Center for Citizen Media

The New York Times, at the tail-end of a report about a new editor for Time, notes a more serious transition.:

Donald Barlett and James Steele, two investigative reporters who have chronicled the vicissitudes of the American economy for Time magazine since 1997, have lost their jobs in a budget squeeze.

The reporting duo, who together won two Pulitzer Prizes and two national magazine awards, were on the payroll of Time Inc. Their jobs were among about 650 that the company has eliminated in the last six months.

John Huey, editor in chief of Time Inc., said that as he cut corporate costs, he sought unsuccessfully to place the two men on the payroll of a company magazine.

“They’re very good but very expensive, and I couldn’t get anyone to take them on their budget,” Mr. Huey said. “We’ll miss their work.”

Mr. Steele, 63, who began working with Mr. Barlett, 69, at The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1971, said: “We’ve had a great run at Time, but apparently the decision was made at the corporate level not to fund this kind of work.”

The word that best describes this is “sad.” Or, maybe, “shameful.”

Barlett and Steele are the gold standard of investigative reporting in America, up there with Seymour Hersh, Robert Caro and not very many others. They are, simply, the best. (Note: Jim Steele is a friend, and I’m proud to know him and Don Barlett.)

Time hired them amid great fanfare when Knight Ridder started paring its corporate desire for such things. Now, the richest magazine group can’t afford it, either.

If I ran a news company, I would find a way to hire these guys. I would do it because their work is so good, and because America needs it.

News organizations seem unlikely to care. So, I hope, some foundations or wealthy individuals will step up to the plate and do something. We all need their work, more than ever.

Earlier this year a Houston Press reporter

drove 1,683 miles in Harris and its surrounding seven counties, visiting 63 school districts to test for compliance with the Texas Public Information Act, which is designed not just for reporters like me but for everyone.

Here’s his story, called “Needling the Haystack.” Quite instructive.

Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America: We urge Congress to move aggressively to save the Internet — and allow ideas rather than money to control what Americans can access on the World Wide Web. We urge all Americans to contact their Congressmen and Senators and tell them to save the Internet and to support ‘Net Neutrality’.

This is not a partisan matter. It’s about the fundamental architecture of the Internet, and whether it will fall under the control of two rapacious industries.

Mark your calendar: On Monday, August 7, we’ll be holding a one-day Citizen Journalism meeting at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School. This will take place the day after Wikimania ends (same location), and we hope to get some crossover from our two gatherings.

Our gathering will be in the “unconference” style — that is, members of the audience will be the panelists, with moderators guiding the conversation.

Look for a wiki in the near future where we plan this out.

Wall Street Journal: Rove’s Camp Takes Center of Web Storm. With more people turning to the Internet for news, bloggers have blurred the lines with traditional media and changed both the dynamics of the reporting process and how political rumors swirl.

The Journal’s story raises some good issues, especially the question of whether putting stuff out there to see if it holds up is a worthy journalistic standard. (It is not.)

But it’s interesting to note that the organization doing the best work on this rumor is the online publication Salon, where Tim Grieve has pointed out the questionable credibility of the author of the report — of a supposed indictment of Karl Rove — that the Journal’s story considers in its report today. The only mention of the reporter’s background in the Journal piece is to say he previously worked for mainstream organizations.

He does have considerable pro journalism in his background. But his previous mistakes seem to be at least relevant information.

I’m pleased to say that I’ve joined the board of the California First Amendment Coalition, which defends our right to speak out for what we believe, and for the public’s right to know what government does with our money and in our names.

Note that this is the people’s right, not just the media’s. As citizen media develops, this will be more and more important. The First Amendment is for all of us.

I’m in San Diego to attend the conference named in the title of this posting. It’s held by Mark Anderson, who operates the highly regarded Strategic News Service and is one of the major brains I encountered in my years covering technology. I’ll be on a panel about the future of news with Dave Winer, one of the people who’s inventing it.

The LAPD Blog (at the Los Angeles Police Department)

hopes to maintain an open dialogue with the communites we serve and those who have an interest in the men and women of this organization. We encourage you to express your opinions about current events through respectful and insightful discussion.

This will be an experiment worth watching. If it leads to more transparency, transcending PR, it’ll be an excellent way for the department to have a conversation with its constituents.

Our comment spam filter is smart enough to have flagged the following item:

There are so many reasons for nonprofits to blog that it’s hard to boil them down to a few, but you’ve
done a great job. The key to all of them — the nugget of information I think all nonprofits should
take away from your post — is that a blog is about connecting very intimately with the unique audience
you’re trying to reach. It’s so much more than a traditional website like this

[“adult” site URLs deleted]

which functions largely as a “billboard” for information. A blog is a place where you can create a
community that centers on exactly the issues you want to discuss, with the people you want to have
a discussion with. It’s like throwing a big dinner party where all the people are interested in exactly
the same conversation as you!

So the spammer has apparently 1) seen the dot-org in our URL and 2) done an automated WordPress spambot.

I’m glad to say that Akismet, the spam filter that comes with WordPress, is working nicely in this case.

Beyond Broadcast 2006: Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture has begun at the Berkman Center, and we’re hearing from some extraordinarily smart folks.

Lots of blogging going on. Here are Flickr pictures tagged with BeyondBroadcast.