I’m planning to attend Vloggercon in San Francisco this June. The organizers call this gathering
the intersection between media-makers and technology. A space for dialog and interaction. Of creation and collaboration. A media village born on the internet, and making camp for one weekend in San Francisco.
See (some of) you there…
Wikipedia has become so popular and influential, that it was the subject of a formal evaluation by Nature magazine in 2005 (and a related dispute by Britannica afterwards).
This month, BBC Focus magazine has done a similar comparision with Encarta, Britannica, Infoplease and Wikipedia. While the study is not currently online, Wikipedian Arwel Parry posted a good summary of the findings on the Wikipedia mailing list.
The bottom line:
The Verdict:
Ratings: Infoplease 2/5; Encarta 3/5; Britannica 3/5; Wikipedia 4/5.
“All the encyclopaedias contained at least some errors and omissions, reinforcing the point that they should be viewed as starting points for your research rather than as all-encompassing fountains of knowledge. Infoplease fared poorest in our test with very little to get your teeth into. Encarta has a bright design and engaging multimedia options, but was let down by a dismal performance in the ‘current news’ test. Meanwhile Britannica’s long history was showcased in authoritative pages that are easy to get around. Our winner is Wikipedia which had the most detailed articles and was best equipped to deal with the ever-changing news about bird flu. While it was only marginally more accurate, it has close to 10 times more articles than the next biggest, all freely available. That means it’s most likely to have what you need.”
While this is far from definitive, and it only studied three topics – George Stephenson, Bird flu ( probably H5N1), Planetesimal – it is increasingly clear Wikipedia has areas of strength that compare well to the “big guys,” and cannot be so easily dismissed.
Bill Woo, one of the best journalists of the past century and a fine man, died yesterday in Palo Alto, California. He was a friend, and — as many of us who’ve talked since yesterday about him would agree — an inspiration. He was a mentor to several generations of journalists.
The newspaper where he made his greatest mark, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, ran this obituary today. The paper also published his final column there: “The Time Has Come to Say Goodbye” — and it ends this way:
Below me, the Meramec flows old and slow and green, coming from so mewhere else, now approaching a bend under high limestone and then going on its way, toward another place that cannot be seen from here. It is a still, peaceful morning, and this is the time. I wish you all the best there is.
I’m heading to Vermont today for a public talk tomorrow evening in Montpelier. It’ll be good to see some old friends.
Over at the Beyond Broadcast 2006 blog, Colin Rhinesmith writes:
On May 12th and 13th, The Berkman Center – along with a team of others – is hosting “Beyond Broadcast: Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture”. The title assumes that something called “public media” exists – but what is it?
You’re encouraged to visit and suggest some answer(s).
In his Talk to the Newsroom, a useful but extremely limited version of transparency at the New York Times, Executive Editor Bill Keller inadvertently reveals a common failing among today’s journalists when he writes:
Perhaps it’s a reporter’s curse, but I seemed to have a gift for seeing both sides of almost every issue.
It’s not a curse when it’s self-imposed.
And given Keller’s exemplary record of journalism, he’s obviously not cursed with the shallowness that line might suggest. But the fact that he wrote it is worrisome for the mindset it reveals.
There are almost never just two sides to anything, at least not two equally compelling and truthful positions battling it out based on actual facts. Issues are infinitely nuanced in most cases, a universe of grays in a culture (journalistic and beyond) where we pretend, or maybe wish, that everything is black or white.
Keller’s statement also reflects one of journalism’s most egregious modern tendencies: uncritical regurgitation of what people say instead of deeper truth-telling. When we get “both sides” of issues where one side is essentially (or wholly) telling the truth and the other is not — and then fail to say so in plain words — we betray our principles and insult our communities.
Journalism is not stenography. Or it shouldn’t be, anyway.
As noted last Friday, we’re going to look deeply into what traditional news organizations are doing to engage their communities (of interest and/or geography) in the journalism process. Here’s an outline, prepared in large part by Olivia Ma at Harvard University, of how we propose to look at this.
We’d like to hear your ideas. What’s missing from this outline? What should we delete? Is this too ambitious, or not enough? Do you want to help us do the survey? (If so, let us know.) We’ll be creating a discussion board soon, but we can start a conversation here in the meantime.
Traditional Media Organizations and their Community Engagement Efforts
Survey Metrics
Community = Consumer/Reader/Audience/Citizen/Community member
Participation = To engage/contribute/produce/etc.
TMO = Traditional Media Organization, including national, regional and local newspapers, magazines and broadcasters
Introduction
Traditional media organizations are starting to embrace some of the tools of conversational media, including blogging, podcasting, videos and more. To date, however, most such efforts have been extensions of the franchise, such as staff-written blogs and podcasts, rather than more deeply involving the members of the community in the actual practice of journalism. We seek to learn which organizations have taken that major additional step: how, why and with what result.
The Initiative
Participation
TMO Staff Roles
Technology and Ease of Use
Success as Journalism
Other Measures of Success
Again, we’d like to hear your ideas. What’s missing from this outline? What should we delete? Is this too ambitious, or not enough? Do you want to help us do the survey? (If so, let us know.) We’ll be creating a discussion board soon, but we can start a conversation here in the meantime.
Joshua Ellis, at Zenarchery.com, wrote:
The first Saturday in April is one of the two days a year when the Trinity test site in New Mexico is open to the public — the next time is in October. Trinity, if you’re not familiar, is where the first nuclear bomb was detonated in July of 1945. I want to go to Trinity next Saturday, and write a long essay about it, and the Bomb, and the Manhattan Project.
He received enough donations to pay for the trip. And this is what he came up with — a terrific project.
(Note: I got his name wrong the first time — abject apologies — and didn’t realize he’d already posted the story, which I’ve now linked to.)
We’re helping to convene Beyond Broadcast 2006: Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture, a gathering on May 12-13 at the Berkman Center (Harvard Law School), where we will:
explore the thesis that traditional public media — public broadcasting, cable access television, etc — face a unique opportunity to embrace new participatory web-based media models — podcasting, video blogs, social software, etc — and create a stronger and more vital public service.
It’s shaping up to be an excellent event. See this page for registration information.
Reuters: Newspapers buying into blog service. A syndication service that delivers commentary from 600 bloggers for use by newspaper publishers is set to launch tomorrow, further blurring the lines that divide blogs and mainstream media.