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On the changing politics of the media
Charlie Beckett from David Wilcox on Vimeo.
Years ago I had a friend who was endlessly frustrated that the Guardian newspaper never published his letters. He took it as a personal slight and the media’s general allergy to small people crying in the wilderness.
In fact, it was more likely that my friend would never compromise the integrity of his arguments for the sake of fitting his work into the tiny space allotted to the editor’s letters page.
The emergence of the blogosphere has allowed people like my frustrated friend to give full vent to their views, be heard (by those who want, or need, to hear them), and ultimately connect to those big unhearing (as opposed to unlistening) media organisations.
Indeed the importance of independent voices is likely to grow, if only because the processes driving it are technological as much as social.
Charlie Beckett of the Polis think tank has recently published a book on the phenomenon of ‘networked journalism’ called Supermedia.
In an accompanying essay he notes:
Networked journalism is a process not a product. The journalist still reports, edits, packages the news. But the process is continually shared.
The networked journalist changes from being a gatekeeper who delivers to a facilitator who connects.
In this foreword, Jeff Jarvis expands on the idea:
By joining and creating networks of journalistic effort – helping with curation, editing, vetting, education, and, yes, revenue – these news organisations can, indeed, grow.
Newspapers can get hyperlocal or international. TV stations can have cameras everywhere.
Investigators can have many more hands helping them dig.
News sites can become more efficient by doing what they do best and linking to the rest.
Reporters can get help and corrections on their work before and after it is published.
On the Today Programme Dr Julian Baggini argued recently that the art of complaining (an art as old as humanity itself) should be re-examined in light of how to do it so that it effects change, rather than just making the complainer feel worse about the world.
Networked journalism, is one of the ways in which ordinary citizens are changing the world, albeit by infinitesimally modest measures.
Both Charlie Beckett and Julian Baggini will be speaking at 2gether08.
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© 2008 2gether08. 
Great points Mick. However it’s a great shame that certain newspapers like The Evening Standard only pay lip service to “networked journalists” & “newspapers getting hyperlocal”. They were probably patting themselves on the back for reporting the “local goes global” story of “Kew going plastic bag free” - but then when the locals tried to leave comments, correcting their story and pointing out that Tesco were not the major heroes in this - they chose to ignore the “complainers” & other commenters for days.
It was only when my post “Kew not quite Plastic Bag Free - Tesco don’t retreat” pointed this out & at least provided some way for the complainers to effect even more change & tell the rest of the world - including major US Green blog Treehugger their story - that the Evening Standard decided to publish more comments - which finally led to a much more interesting discussion - than the 1 “pro Tesco” comment initially there.
I still wonder how many more comments there actually were and which ones the Evening Standard chose not to publish.
But yes it’s great that online citizen journalism has this “potential” to effect change - and the more newspaper groups & broadcasters that embrace this “fully” the better.