Of course the “Editorial Review Committee” being created to supposedly assure editorial independence at Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal “Looks Like A 98-Pound Weakling,” as Editor & Publisher’s Mark Fitzgerald writes. It was designed that way.
Look. Murdoch is buying Dow Jones. The owner gets to decide. Period. This guy isn’t going to give up the control he bought.
The first act of this meaningless committee should be a mass resignation. That would have the virtue of honesty.
Students and recent graduates from Berkeley, Northwestern, Columbia and USC journalism programs have done a fascinating array of work this summer in the latest edition of the “News21 Initiative” project. This year it’s called “Faces of Faith in America,” and includes some sophisticated Web work in addition to traditional media production.
Some of the many highlights in the Web areas:
There’s much more to come, and what I’ve noted above are some — just some — of the any highlights of an enormous amount of work these folks have done. Truly excellent, and gives me a good feeling about the future of journalism.
(Note: I’m a paid advisor to the project.)
CNET: TreeHugger acquisition confirmed. A representative for eco-blog TreeHugger has confirmed that the site has been acquired by Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, Animal Planet, and several other properties. A report of the deal initially surfaced in the New York Post today. A press release from Discovery and TreeHugger confirmed that the blog will be part of the upcoming Planet Green network, but financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The New York Post had suggested a $10 million price tag.
The skeptics will call this more evidence of big media co-opting emerging media. I call it a natural flow.
Keep in mind the following fact: If Discovery tampers with TreeHugger in ways that turn off the site’s audience and participants, they can always go somewhere else. The barrier to entry for another eco-site is close to zero.
That’s the difference between old and new media, and it’s the one that will keep the journalistic and media ecosystems diverse and vibrant.
Wired News’ Ryan Singel notes:
Given this Administration’s track record on truthfulness, secrecy and overseas bungling, why is Congress even contemplating giving them more authority to spy on American citizens without even the slightest supervision from the secret and submissive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court?
Why this country is even contemplating allowing the nation’s intelligence services to transform the internet and the phone networks into the world’s largest bugging device, simply because this Administration’s foreign policy has fed, rather than crushed, a pathetic, religious death cult?
This is happening while the nation’s attention is on one thing: the bridge that collapsed in Minnesota.
Television is staying on the story in mind-boggling detail mainly for one reason. There are great pictures.
Sure, there’s some ancillary coverage of the scandalous way America has let its crucial infrastructure deteriorate. We use taxpayers’ money on sports stadiums and leave bridges to corrode.
Meanwhile, the future of surveillance is being “debated” — with barely a shred of coverage from the media — in Washington. That is a genuine scandal. This story should be front and center in coverage, not an afterthought.
Once again the traditional press is shamelessly negligent. Will it ever wake up?
Dan Kennedy: The peoples’ presses. There’s no question that the large media institutions (Russell) Baker so loves are fading away, and we don’t yet know what will come next. “How the internet might replace the newspaper as a source of information is never explained by those who assure you that it will,” Baker writes. To which I can only respond (thus proving him right): It will. Journalism will survive, even as the vessels in which it is carried give way to something else entirely.
I’m leading a multi-day citizen-media workshop at UC Berkeley for journalists from Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia. Postings will be light as a result.
NY TImes: Murdoch Seen to Win Control of Dow Jones. Rupert Murdoch appeared today to have gained enough support from the deeply divided Bancroft family to buy Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, for $5 billion.
A sad day for journalism, but not surprising.
All I can say is I’m glad he’s doing it: The 5-4-3 double play, or “The Art of Conference Blogging”
Jeff Howe (Wired Magazine): To Save Themselves, US Newspapers Put Readers to Work.
Sanjana Hattotuwa (ICT4Peace): Citizen Journalism and humanitarian aid: Bane or boon? The deep-rooted power of politicians in rigid social structures, casteism, a clientelist political architecture, rampant nepotism and corruption, among others, temper the progressive social transformation promised by the New Media and Citizen Journalism in particular. Scalability is another problem – projects that show great potential when funded often join a graveyard of well-intentioned initiatives when the funding dries up. Countries such as Sri Lanka are still bedevilled by the lack of standards based swabhasha data input frameworks that in turn strangle the awareness and growth of new media content, such as blogs, in Sinhala and Tamil. As a result, contrary to its moniker, citizen journalism today shows an urban bias, is mediated in English and, inescapably, elite. This will need to change and soon.