I’m at the Digital Library Federation’s Fall Forum in Philadelphia, giving a keynote talk this afternoon. These folks are doing important work to bring us into a digital future in ways that honor traditional library values and practices.
They’ve asked me to talk about changes in journalism. I plan to implore them to focus part of their attention on media literacy in a media-saturated world, a task in which they can play an absolutely essential role.
Pantagraph.com: Newspapers file suit against IHSA. The Illinois Press Association filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Illinois High School Association in an effort to overturn a rule that limits access to school sporting events and the use of photos taken at those events.
Yes, the association’s action is obnoxious. But the best responses would take two forms.
First, temporarily suspend coverage of these high school sports events, or at least selected games, and explain to the readers why. Second, ask fans to take their own pictures and publish them.
Sports are entertainment in modern America, and sports leagues are trying to capitalize on this. But they’d be less successful entertainments without media coverage.
Jon Garfunkel has done prodigious work in analyzing the impact of the now-abandoned pay model at the New York Times. The eight parts of “The TimesSelect Reader,” his report, are all worth reading.
Key finding: Despite complaints from bloggers (including this one), the pay site did not begin to remove the Times columnists from the national conversation. If the columnists didn’t show up in Google searches, he says, that’s because of a Google policy.
Moreover, he writes in an email:
There is a solution for newspapers to charge money to readers who want to pay money for a premium service of news. I don’t know if it’s a viable market, but I have discussed in some more depth in this series and feel it should considered as well.
Also, tying in a point that I made in a previous series: while people fretted about the $10 million made by the NYT in what was clearly a willful contract, no one in the mediasphere has commented on the fact that the Fox News Channel, after renegotiating their carriage fees a year ago, was now pulling down $850 million from American cable viewers. I think the economics of this bears further consideration by people who care about the future of news.
Talking Points Memo: Right-Wing Bloggers Launch Campaign — With MoveOn! — Against Fox News Over Debate Footage. A coalition of right-wing bloggers and MoveOn that helped force several networks to allow public use of their political debate footage last spring has just launched a similar campaign against Fox News.
Good for all of them. Fox News’ position is untenable from almost any point of reference.
Jay Rosen asks, Beat Reporting With a Social Network: Can it Work?
Are there network effects in beat reporting? Across the US, a dozen reporters (with beats) are going to try to find out—simultaneously. This will improve their odds of succeeding.
The answer is yes, I’m certain, and I’m betting this great new project that Jay is working on will conclusively demonstrate it.
I’ve had a great time in Santiago, Chile, where I’ve visited with journalists and students for the past three days. El Mercurio did an interview, and a talk this morning at TVN, the major public TV network, will run tonight — but I’ll be on a plane home.
I was honored to appear at the TVN gathering with Jorge Domínguez Larraín, founder and CEO Diarios Ciudadanos Chile, publisher of El Morrocotudo, one of the country’s pathbreaking citizen journalism outlets, and several other related online news sites. “Our network has 43,000 unique visitors per day, nearly 3,500 people writing every month and over 50 employees in 7 different regions of the country,” he says.
Here’s a report on the site about today’s event.
Other than all the great folks, and visits to some of the city’s major attractions, a highlight was the amazing Chilean food (and the nation’s wines, which the rest of the world is only just discovering). Fish, naturally, is a big deal in the menu. Then again, given the proximity to Argentina, so is beef.
I ate reineta, a local fish, at one of the city’s excellent restaurants. Another fine memory, and another reason I expect to be back here someday.
These are journalism graduate students in Santiago — as smart and engaged in the future of journalism as any people you’ll find in any place. They also like to have a beer after class….
NY Times: Not All Is Gloomy in Real Estate: A Blog Network Attracts Capital. In some respects, sites like Curbed are insulated from the woes of the real estate market in a way that traditional sites may not be. “We’re not just about real estate,” Mr. Steele said. “People come to the site to talk about their neighborhoods and about life in the city.” This wide focus has helped Curbed draw advertisers like American Express and Volkswagen, Mr. Steele said.
NY Times: Murdoch, a Folk Hero in Silicon Valley. But on the left coast, Mr. Murdoch is truly among friends. The attendees at the Web 2.0 conference know him as the ultimate market timer, the guy who swooped in out of nowhere and bought MySpace for $580 million two years ago, before its audience doubled and before social networks became the platform of the future. And this was before Facebook got a valuation of $15 billion via an investment from Microsoft on Wednesday.
He’s not my hero. And he’s no hero to anyone who gives even half a damn about the future of honorable journalism in this world — which I’m willing to bet includes plenty of folks in Silicon Valley.
Murdoch is brilliant. He’s a genuine risk-taker. He’s more visionary than almost anyone in traditional media. So far so good.
But his publications and broadcast outlets have done more to poison the public sphere than any other media empire, by far. This is not heroic, not as any dictionary I’m familiar with would describe the word.
I’ve arrived in Santiago, Chile, for several days of talks and workshops at Universidad Mayor, a local university, and TVN, a television network. It’s a busy schedule but should be fascinating.
In a brief walk around the center of the city with some local residents, we stopped at the presidential palace. It is a site that resonates history, including what Americans probably know best about Chile’s recent political happenings: the 1973 military coup that brought down an elected (though deeply troubled) government and put into power a brutal regime.
The president of Chile, Salvador Allende, died in this palace, probably by his own hand. For 17 long years thereafter, Chile was ruled by Augusto Pinochet, the army chief who led the coup.
Chile is South America’s most developed nation, in part because Pinochet liberalized trade in the 1980s, forcing companies to learn to compete in world markets. But it’s at least arguable that the dictator’s harsh rule slowed this vibrant people’s economic rise more than he helped it — and nothing justifies the horrors he and his regime forced on their people.
The press was a state lackey during the Pinochet years. It is free today. And a new generation of Internet journalists is rising to enhance and challenge the traditional media. I hope some of them will be among the students I meet here; they, as everywhere else, are the hope for our future, in whatever land we call home.