Comment deadline for Public Journalism 2.0 extended

We have had a request to extend the time to comment about the interviews for our book Public Journalism 2.0 by a few days. (See May 8 posting below for details). We therefore are setting a new deadline of May 25. Thank you to those who have contributed, and we hope this extension will elicit a little more involvement from the civic-citizen journalism community.

"A cautionary tale with great photos"

Photographer Stephen Mallon was hired for an adventure in January -- to take close-ups of the salvage of U.S. Air Flight 1549 from the freezing Hudson.

On the Nieman blog Tim Windsor dubs Matthew Schechmeister's report "a cautionary tale with great photos."

Interesting.

Also see: "There's a plane in the Hudson"

"Opinion does not make citizen journalism"

Matthew Negrin of the New Hampshire Union Leader:

[J]ournalists are paid to inform the community.

So when people talk about citizen journalism replacing old-school journalism, I'm not exactly sure what they mean. Do they mean more people adding their opinions about community affairs? Do they mean more people reporting actual news by digging for secrets? Or do they just mean more blogging? It would be really great if some smart, aspiring citizen journalists could outline what exactly they plan to do to further the discussion of news instead of simply reducing it to personal opinion.

More here.

Research project on civic-citizen journalism puts theory into practice

In planning for our book "Public Journalism 2.0: The Promise and Reality of a Citizen Engaged Press," (due out from Routledge early in 2010) we thought it would be interesting and appropriate to use some of the techniques of online participatory journalism in exploring the practice. If we're shifting to an era when "news is a conversation," then why not apply the same principle to research about the process?

To that end, we developed the idea of a chapter for each unit of the book called "Open Source," featuring interviews with experts in civic journalism about their thoughts on the field's evolution. The name "Open Source" came from the idea that not only the authors but the other contributors would supply interview questions, and also from the idea that comments about the completed interviews would be part of the final publication.

Well, the interviews have been done with with three individuals whose names should be recognizable to anyone familiar with civic and citizen journalism: Lewis Friedland of the University of Wisconsin, Tanni Haas of City College of New York and Jan Schaffer of J-Lab at American University. Lew was interviewed by telephone and Jan and Tanni replied in writing to a series of questions. And now comes the "open source" comment part of it: We have posted the interviews on a blog and hope to collect comments that will be incorporated into the published version of the book.

If you are interested in looking at and perhaps even commenting on these interviews, the blog with the transcripts and comment areas can be found at http://publicjournalismbook.blogspot.com. (You will need a free Blogspot account to make comments. If you don't have one, information about obtaining one can be found at the blog site.)

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please recognize that by making a comment you are authorizing its inclusion in the published book, and also be aware that we reserve the right to edit for clarity and space. Anonymous comments will be rejected.

We are hoping to wrap up this portion of the project by May 15, so the comments will be available until then. The questions developed with the help of our contributors are interesting, and the answers provided by Lew, Jan and Tanni are informative and illuminating. Please take a few minutes to check them out and add your voice to the conversation.

Jack Rosenberry
Burton St. John III
(If you have any questions, use e-mail link with our names at the right)

Murdoch's newspaper sites will begin to charge users in a year

Rupert Murdoch, the would-be media plutocrat of $4 billion net worth, seems to be leading his media properties via two emerging strategies.

One, use citizen journalism when possible. Two, start to charge for Web content.

Breaking news all over again, via CNN today.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch expects News Corporation-owned newspaper Web sites to start charging users for access within a year in a move which analysts say could radically shake-up the culture of freely available content.

Murdoch's newspaper properties include the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, the New York Post (all in the United States), the Times and the Sun (both in the United Kingdom), and the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and the Australian (all down under).

The Wall Street Journal already charges $79 per year for much of its Web content -- it did so even before Murdoch's News Corporation purchased it in August of 2007. But the Journal is still available for free via the iPhone and BlackBerry -- which doesn't please Mr. Murdoch at all.

Also see: Stop giving away content via Web, Walter Isaacson advises media
And: Fox News launches citizen journalism site
And: Mainstream media sites increasingly welcome citizen participation
And: Citizen journalism will complement "public media 2.0," says white paper
And: MySpace starts its own citizen journalism forum
Finally: A sustainable model emerges: Use collective intelligence but fact-check with journalists

New Kindle promises to kindle new cravings

Today in New York Amazon CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos launched the 9.7-inch-screen Kindle DX (for "deluxe"), the latest of the portable, personalizable content readers.

College students are clearly a target market.

Other than the increased size, the biggest improvement in the Kindle ecosystem is the deal with textbook publishers. The textbook market will be key for the DX to succeed. Amazon has already signed up three of the top five textbook publishers (Cengage Learning, Pearson, and Wiley) as well as 27 University Press Publishers. The Kindle DX will be used in trials with at least five universities this fall.

So are digital newspaper aficionados. The New York Times reports:

Amazon also said that three newspapers, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, would offer a reduced price on the Kindle in exchange for a long-term subscription, but only for people who live in areas where their paper editions are not available. Amazon and the newspapers described it as a pilot program.

Meanwhile, Mark Glaser is at a symposium at the University of Missouri where "a group of newspapers and tech folks . . . are looking at how newspaper content might work on various e-readers like the Amazon Kindle."

Economics of delivering a newspaper on Kindle:

> Avg. file size = 1.2MB
> Bandwidth cost = .12 cents MB
> Selling price = $13.99 month
> Monthly bandwidth cost = $4.32

That eats into monthly cost of serving content into Kindle. So Amazon is probably losing money on some of the lower cost publications it sells. This cost doesn't even include advertising in the mix.

Mr. Glaser has a blog post about "the next generation of e-readers." Check it out. It's good stuff.

Also see: Could Kindle 2 save the newspapers?
And: Huffington counsels old media: Monetize links, don't try to sell exclusive content
And: What will the future newspaper look like?

Huffington counsels old media: Monetize links, don't try to sell exclusive content

Arianna Huffington, goddess of the Huffington Post, has called for "a distinction between saving journalism and saving newspapers."

Today we live in the linked economy, not a walled-off content economy. The challenge is to find different ways to monetize links among media through advertising or micropayment or whatever, not subscription for exclusive content. In this environment, good journalism will survive, and even flourish, though most newspapers--except for a handful of the very best papers and magazines in every national market -- probably will not. There will be more bottom up, citizen journalism, which is great.

For more check out this interview in the German weekly Die Welt.

Image courtesy of Gawker.com

Also see: Huffington Post's checklist of "citizen journalism publishing standards"
And: Newspaper layoffs zoom
And: Could Kindle 2 save the newspapers?
And: The one business Warren Buffett will not buy "at any price"
And: Fox launches a conservative counter to HuffPo
Finally: Walter Isaacson advises media to stop giving away content via Web