I, Reporter

Meeting of Two Mindsets

The Media/Blogger Summit yesterday was a meeting of two mindsets. So I guess it’s not surprising that some folks there described blogs as transformative, while others pooh-pooh’d them.

Chris Ahearn of Reuters, for example, used his talk in the very early part of the day to essentially liken bloggers to a cheap date! He called them "overrated," though in the same breath said they were great for the news industry because they were such an inexpensive way to open news organization’s discussion with audience.

By contrast ...

'Media and the Age of the Blogger' Summit

Still digesting a thought-provoking day at the Media in the Age of the Blogger Summit here in New York. I can say that the otherwise excellent gathering, with high-level speakers and audience, sadly had little to contribute on the trend of citizen media. Lots of good insights on blogging though, and a day well spent.

Here's a piece about it from high-tech commentator Michael Malone, an organizer of the meeting, which he calls the first annual summit between the Mainstream media and the blogosphere [Disclosure: I know Malone well, and helped develop his Silicon Insider column on ABCNEWS.com, where I edited it for a number of years as business senior producer.] Malone's column gives a good overview too of the Wednesday night keynote by blogger Roger L. Simon, whose Pajamas Media mega-blogger site launch happens Nov. 16. Simon's own blog has some discussion of the Malone piece. And there's more on Simon's keynote at The Adventures of Chester blog (blogger Josh Manchester was at the summit as one of several representatives of the blogosphere).

More after the Friday-Saturday Online News Association annual meeting...

Citizen Media Summit

An interesting discussion came up during the Citizen Media Summit about whether or not you're better off leaving citizen journalism contributions on your site unedited.

Confab Time

It's online conference week for me, starting Monday with a very stimulating Citizen Media Summit sponsored by J-Lab at the University of Maryland's College of Journalism. I'll post later on about the program, which sparked a lot of ideas (not to mention the really high caliber of attendees, which sparked even more). Meanwhile, one of the panelists, Steve Yelvington, live blogged the first and second panels. Check his posts out; the second one has the beginnings of an interesting exchange about liability over edited vs. unedited citizen journalist contributions.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, I'll be participating in an interesting business-focused gathering called Media, Communications and Technology in the  Age of the Blogger. This is one I've posted about before. I've been in regular contact with the organizers, who are aiming for a program that looks hard at what business models are making sense for new media. They've assembled a strong program.

Finally, there's the annual conference of the Online News Association on Friday and Saturday. I helped out a bit on this one, mainly by putting together a fun little podcast walking tour of media landmarks of Manhattan, where the conference is being held. Check it out on the ONA conference site here or here or go to a Newsday.com tourism site for attendees here or even just go directly to the MP3. Since it's my first podcast, forgive the technical limitations. Your comments and critiques are welcome.