Dan Gillmor is standing in for Clay Shirky for the morning keynote at Supernova (Clay's flight from NYC was cancelled — Frankston wants to know if he was flying United). His talk: Journalism 3.1b4 — a riff on the Journalism 3.0 talk he gave last year at Emerging Tech (expect an expanded version of this at this year's conference — don't miss it, and don't forget to send your talk-proposals!).
More bandwidth + more processing power + more storage = New journalism.
First, "Old Media." Then "New Media." Now, "We Media" — the power of everyone and everything at the edge.
Sept 11 was the turning-point. Dan was in South Africa and got the same coverage the rest of the world did. Most of us couldn't get to nytimes.com, but blogs filled in the gap. The next day we had the traditional 32-point screaming headlines and photos. But we also got, through Farber's Interesting People list, links to satellite photos of the event, first person accounts from Australians explaining how it felt outside of America.
Blogs covered it, and then a personal email from an Afghan American that circulated on the Internet, got posted to blogs, made it onto national news.
9-11 sent people to the Internet. More than 2/3ds used the Internet to learn about the attacks.
New journalism is built on ubiquitous networks, wonderful tools, anyone can publish, but will anyone make money?
Journalism goes from being a lecture to a seminar: we tell you what we have learned, you tell us if you think we're correct, and then we discuss it: we can fact-check your ass (Ken Layne).
Dan's new foundation principle: "My readers know more than I do."
This is true for all working journalists, and not a threat, it's an opportunity.
At PCForum, Joe Nacchio, the CEO of Qwest was on-stage, doing a Q&A. Joe was whining about how hard it is to run a phone company these days. Dan blogged, "Joe's whining." A few moments later, he got an email from someone who wasn't at the conference, someone in Florida, with a link to a page that showed that Joe took $300MM out of the company and has another $4MM to go — gutting the company as he goes.
Esther Dyson described this as the turning point. The mood turned ugly. The room was full of people reading the blog and everyone stopped being willing to cut Joe any slack.
David Isenberg: Dan once wrote that nothing at a conference ever happens in the main room — it all goes down in the corridors. Blogs change that.
The office of the Secretary of Defense posts full transcripts of all press interviews with Rumsfeld: they do this because the editing process of the interviews sets the new to a slant that they feel is unfair. Dan: this will change the lives of journos — when sources can say, "That's not what I said, and here's proof."
The new tools of new journliasm: Digital cameras, SMS, writeable web (blogs, wikis, etc), recorded audio and video.
Blogs are the coolest part of it: variety, gifted pros and amateurs, RSS, meme formation and coalescing ideas, real-time (heh — typing as fast as I can).
15-year-olds blog from cellphones today — they're who I ask for tips on the future. Joi Ito blogs with his camera — so do smart-mobs. (David Sifry: A guy ran a marathon and blogged it from his Sidekick).
The next time there is a major event in Tokyo, there will be 500 images on the web of whatever it was that happened before any professional camera crew arrives on the scene.
But it's not just blogs: Email is still the best source, especially lists like Interesting people. Forums and newsgroups, and non-blog websites.
The big question: what can you trust? KayCee Nicole and other hoaxes. Bloggers who debunked the story did profoundly good journalism. Rumors move at the speed of light, corrections follow slowly.
The death of big media won't be an unmitigated disaster: big media is concentrated, unduly influenced by money, and vanilla. But big media also does the investigative stuff and knows where to look for burgeoning stories.
Old media is in danger because there's lots more competition for advertising.
No one knows how new media will turn a buck.
And what happens if Hollywood wins? Disney: "There is no right to fair use." American Association of Publishers: "We have serious problems with librarians." Jamie Kellner, Fox exec: "Skipping commercials is stealing."
The Internet is a read-write medium, but Hollywood wants to make it into TV.
Get active: Lobby, support organizations, vote, support good canditates, take the issues to your friends.
The keyboards are clattering in the room — expect lots of other takes on this talk to show up on the Supernova Group Blog.
Audience question: Do bloggers who attend events on someone else's dime have an obligation to disclose that fact? Dan: well, that's what journalists do. (Do we need a blogger speaker's bureau?)
Audience question: If bloggers are journalists, are analysts journalists? Dan: Analysts are often tainted by the same conflicts that characterize investment banking researchers. Online writers can't get credentialled for attendance at the Olympics and people who hold up their cam-phones at the event can get booted out — a TV network owns the right to transmit photos of the Olympics. Analyst, blogger, journalist — conflicted or not — they're all deserving of First Amendment protection. [Wild applause!]
