For the past week, I have been posting information I’ve learned from the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis (January 12-14). This post is yet another in that series. One of my favorite parts of the conference was the exhibit hall. There, I met dozens of exhibitors, representatives of…
Here, courtesy of DemocracyNow.org, it the written text of Bill Moyers' plenary speech during the Nation Conference for Media Reform. Where is the movement headed? Read this part of Moyers' speech: SO I'M BACK WHERE I STARTED WITH YOU, AND WHERE THIS MOVEMENT IS HEADED. The greatest challenge to the…
Check this out, from Iraqslogger: The New York Times and Washington Post are stuffed with Iraq-focused reporting, analyses, and commentaries – 25 in all. Yet, amazingly, not a single one of those original stories comes from Iraq itself (in fairness, there’s a Baghdad-datelined AP report in the NYT). Why? With…
I reviewed about six sources for quotes to find quotes about journalism and media. Here are some of my favorites. People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news. -- A. J. Liebling (1904 - 1963) To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. The first discipline…
A few days ago, I was at the Memphis Convention Center waiting for Dennis Kucinich to enter a large room to begin his press conference. The reporter sitting in front of me noticed that I was wearing credentials bearing the word “press,” credentials granted by the National Conference for Media Reform.
She asked me about “Dangerous Intersection.” I told her that it is a blog created in March 2006. I mentioned that we have a dozen participating authors and that we get about 1100 unique visitors each day.
She asked, “Would you have ever believed back in March that you would be sitting here covering a press conference of a person running for President of the United States?” It didn’t cross my mind back then. This blogging experience has taken lots of unexpected twists and turns. I jokingly told her that she was making me nervous by making the press conference seem more important–and reminding me that I am merely a citizen journalist.
(Here I am in Memphis, Citizen Journalist. The bottom of my badge reads “Press.”)
One of the main points stressed throughout the Media Reform Conference, however, was that journalism is changing rapidly. Corporate media is struggling (often because its corporate owners are muzzling its reporters) and citizen journalists are stepping into the void. Though the citizen journalists range in quality, they do include many highly qualified reporters who are having lots of fun contributing to the public discourse. Prior to this movement, most of these people …
