travel

Not long ago someone suggested I might be an isolationist, based on something I had written about the fading role of world and national news and the rise of hyperlocalism in newspapers.

I took my wife and my youngest daughter to the airport Monday, where they turned a hundred thousand of my frequent-flier miles into a trip to Europe. We will spend our Christmas holiday separated by thousands of miles because we believe it's that important for young people to get a broader view of the world than they can get by staying home.

Except for a weekend in Canada, I didn't travel internationally until I was over 40. Now I can't get enough of it, and everyone in my family is collecting visa stamps in their passports.

One of my great frustrations is that, like most Americans, I can't carry on a conversation in any language other than English. I had to turn down a potential gig in Madrid the other day because my Castellano is fit only for ordering una cerveza, por favor. My relationship with half a dozen other languages is similar.

There is, however, an isolationist streak in American culture, and when it collides with the reality of a rapidly shrinking world the results can be ugly. You can see that in the anti-Hispanic immigration backlash being exploited by the crass TV demagogue Lou Dobbs, but equally in the ignorant arrogance that has led to the bloody chaos in Iraq and the downfall of America as a world leader. I don't want my kids to grow up so handicapped.

So I'm a bit of an internationalist. But at the same time I recognize that we all live simultaneously in multiple worlds.

I have a work world, a family world, a neighborhood world, a number of worlds of special interests, and in each of those worlds I have different needs for current and persistent information, connections, and commercial interaction. Some of those worlds are hyperlocal; others may be hyperspecialized.

The problem faced by "general" news organizations is that they fit poorly into a matrix of specialization. American newspapers in particular are poorly suited to specialization. They evolved in an information economy (and entertainment economy) of scarcity. In the 19th century a daily printed product was an exciting breakthrough in bandwidth; in the 21st it's a puny little trickle.

Yet most American newspapers continue to operate on the omnibus model, dumping onto the doorstep (or, more often, throwing into the driveway) a mashup of local, regional, national and global news, sports and business coverage. It is a stew suited to an earlier era, one that is consumed not to satisfy needs but rather to satisfy a fading habit.

I believe American newspapers need a complete restructuring of journalism priorities and processes. When I advocate hyperlocalism, it's not because I lack interest in global topics; it's that I believe newspapers must specialize to survive.

The local and hyperlocal spaces in which we all live are full of unmet and poorly met needs in the areas of information and connectivity/communications. Those areas constitute opportunities. Who will focus their resources on them?

I've been on the road a bit lately doing actual work on some projects. Upcoming I have several conferences:

New York Press Association convention. For some reason it's in Vermont. I've never been to Vermont but I hear they make good ice cream. Flying to Albany Thursday, speaking Friday, and theoretically home Friday night. We'll see.

NewspaperNext final symposium, Sept. 27 in Washington (actually northern Virginia, although that's probably an oxymoron). N2 will have some interesting presentations and announcements, and that's all I'll say at this point.

J-Lab Citizens Media Summit II where I'm on a panel Oct. 5, again in Washington. And immediately following, the Online News Association annual convention.

I'm in Minnesota today at a workshop on digital storytelling pulled together by Nora Paul of the University of Minnesota's New Media Institute. It's a bit of old home week for me -- we're meeting at the Star Tribune. Participants include Ken Riddick, Will Tacy, Jamie Hutt and Matt Thompson, all currently at startribune.com, as well as longtime site designer Jamie Hutt, former editors Rusty Coats and myself, and various current and former competitors.

There's been a lot of talk about engagement, passive vs. interactive interfaces, social vs. personal experiences, pydias vs. ludis. (The last comes from Matt and I have no idea how to spell it, and Google ain't helping.) It's been energizing to spend some time with smart people talking about journalism and storytelling.

Tonight I'll fly to Dulles for an API seminar, where I'm leading a session tomorrow on internet strategy for community newspapers.

From Moscow, just a short note (because I am on the world's slowest so-called 54-mb network):

It's been fascinating in the last 24 hours to hear Thomas Jefferson quoted from the podium. Last night at the Moscow Music Theater, Russian TV personality Syatoslav Belza recited for 1,700 or so world press delegates Jefferson's famous claim that if presented the alternative between a government with no newspapers or newspapers with no government, he would choose the latter. Moscow mayor Yuri Luzkhov talked of the importance of the "fourth power" -- information -- and of the need for impartiality in the press.

Today WAN president Gavin O'Reilly challenged Russian president Vladimir Putin on charges that Russian leaders have been "reluctant to forgo control and influence over the media." Putin, for his part, pointed out that the discussion was taking place in the former grand meeting hall of the Communist Party and said that "without a free press, such large-scale change can be impossible." Putin went on to say that a free press must be not only free of government interference, but also free of oligarchical control, and cited the creation of some 53,000 periodicals and a wide variety of choice in the regional press.

As an American walking for the first time on Russian soil, it is striking how certain American values have spread throughout the world. We did not invent free expression, of course, but the protections embodied in the Constitution have served as a model. No nation is without the stain of transgressions against freedom of expression, including ours, but I am proud to be from a culture that has helped lead the world in this area.

Now we must muster the courage to stick with those convictions, and with the rest of the Bill of Rights.