Pew's report "Bloggers: A portrait of the Internet's new storytellers" has already been thoroughly discussed by the usual suspects, but I can't resist observing that the Hindu fable of the blind men and the elephant is once again in play. Much nonsense about the blogosphere has been written by people who apparently have encountered only the tusk or the trunk. The Pew report paints a more complete picture.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was a reporter, I occasionally would run across a self-important jackass of a public official who would try to confiscate my notebook, camera, or film to prevent me from reporting or photographing something.
I grew up with the notion that journalists were dedicated to openness and public disclosure, and opposed to the occasional wannabee totalitarian. But lately I've become convinced that in some professional journalistic organizations, the same tendancies lurk just beneath the surface.
Staci Kramer reports that Post-Dispatch investigative reporter Christopher Carey is striking out on his own with a website called Sharesleuth, which will engage stringers and non-journalists in a quest to uncover "stock fraud and executive malfeasance on the national and international level."
Mark Cuban is bankrolling it.
If it works, this is huge. Much bigger than, say, Om Malik or Scoble and all the other stuff that's buzzing the net today.
I'm quoting economist Paul Romer at the top of my presentation Monday to the World Editors Forum in Moscow. Romer has said many smart things, but one of my favorites is this: "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste."
Awhile back I mentioned a project that we had in the works. The curtain has been lifted, partially, with the "preview" launch at new.savannahnow.com of an all-new community website associated with the Savannah Morning News. In a matter of weeks, the site will be completed and will replace www.savannahnow.com.
If you're one of the dozen or so who don't already have Jeff Jarvis' blog in a newsreader and check it daily, you should follow the link and read his rip on NJ state legislator Peter Biondi's really dumb bill that would outlaw anonymity in online conversation -- and make forum operators liable for any anonymous defamation.
Pressthink's Blue Plate Special launched today with a list headlined "The Best Blogging Newspapers
in the U.S.*" with a quick explanation (signaled by the asterisk) that it's not really the best blogging newspapers in the United States. Instead, Jay Rosen's students at New York University surveyed the 100 largest-circulation daily newspapers in the United States to see what they're doing.
