How a citizen investigator shook the state's conscience

This week's New Yorker contains some devastating journalism by staff writer David Grann.

Mr. Grann's is the type of story that must be read by every student of reporting -- and by every deadwood hack who has ever tried to wring poetry from journalism.

It supports my hunch that great journalism is not about mushy platitudes or feel-good prose, but, rather, about exploring -- and with luck, exposing -- jarring truths.

Mr. Grann exposes a particularly jarring truth: How, in an arrest culminating in an execution, the state of Texas failed justice -- failed it systematically via the due processes of trial, appeal, and clemency -- thus realizing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's eerie old fear (expressed via a concurring opinion joined by Anthony Kennedy in Herrara v. Collins (1993)):

[T]he execution of a legally and factually innocent person would be a constitutionally intolerable event.

But the real reason I blog about Mr. Grann's penetrating story is Elizabeth Gilbert of Houston, Texas, the citizen investigator whom he spotlights.

Ms. Gilbert is a friend-of-the-underdog activist whose selfless effort -- even though she ends up buoyed-up by her prisoner subject -- is an example in perseverance, particularly for wannabe citizen journalists.

Check out Ms. Gilbert's tenacious compassion in the must-read story, here. Meanwhile, to Mr. Grann I say, take a bow.

CCJIG's annual report for 2008-09 records significant achievements, key aspirations

I have placed on file CCJIG's annual report (and demographic profile) (pdf, 293 kb) for 2008-09.

The group's chief achievements for the year:

• Membership jumped by about 30 per cent to 116, from 89 a year ago. Of those registered members, 57 were female; six identified themselves as African-American, two as Asian-American, and 12 as International.

• CCJIG emerged as AEJMC’s largest interest group (by number of registered members), as announced by Council of Divisions chair Kimberly Bissell at the mid-winter meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, on 6 Dec. 2008.

• Entries for the 2009 research paper competition increased 50 per cent to 27 from 18 a year ago, including a record 14 graduate student paper submissions.

• An update of CCJIG’s research bibliography was published.

• New collaborations (Law & Policy and History; also Harvard University and MIT) were established for convention activities. Old collaborations were maintained (Community Journalism, Media Ethics, Newspaper, Council of Affiliates).

• The CCJIG blog, with more than 120 posts, became a primary catalyst of member discussion, meeting a key goal listed in the previous annual report.

• An additional 100 or so posts on AEJMC Talk, many of them repeats or elaborations of CCJIG blog posts, exposed the larger AEJMC membership to civic and citizen journalism discussions.

• Three newsletters (Fall 2008, Spring 2009, and Summer 2009) were published and circulated inside and outside of the group by newsprint and e-mail, each to about 200 receivers.

• As of 30 July 2009, CCJIG's account had a balance of $3766.50.

• CCJIG secured a $400 travel grant from AEJMC to fund the 2009 Boston convention travel of a non-member panelist from New York.

The report also lists CCJIG’s goals for the coming year. Some of those goals reflect perceived weaknesses; their order of priority is to be decided by the in-coming officers.

The group's goals for 2009-10:

• Facilitate a discussion of CCJIG possibly applying to be an AEJMC Division, in a light of the group's quickly rising membership, the ubiquity of user-generated media, and the burgeoning scholarship of citizen journalism.

• Maintain the CCJIG blog as a primary catalyst of member discussion, partly by encouraging blog participation by a cross-section of the membership.

• Increase membership of minority and International scholars by 5 per cent overall.

• Facilitate two or three Teaching panels in Denver 2010 (in Boston 2009 the group had only one) so that a relative balance may be restored between CCJIG’s Research, Teaching and PF&R activities.

• Increase submissions of research papers by 10 per cent (from the 27 papers in Boston 2009) and enhance the quality of scholarship, particularly that related to citizen-journalistic responsibility.

• Maintain an updated bibliography, preferably annotated.

• Facilitate an increase of 10 per cent in submission of research papers related to (a) newer and rapidly evolving technologies such as Twitter or its progeny, or (b) the impact of new writing styles on citizen-journalistic credibility or responsibility.

• Maintain overall acceptance rate of research competition papers at the current 55.55 per cent to par a course set by the Research Committee (known as the "50 per cent guideline").

• Publish a teaching compendium to address the curriculum, content and pedagogy areas of the Teaching Committee standards; particular effort may be needed from CCJIG’s teaching standards chair (this will be a goal carried forward from 2007-08).

• Organize a symposium or other meeting, online or offline, to mark the 20th anniversary – in 2010 – of James Batten's 1990 address that was a bellwether in the citizen journalism movement (this will be a goal modified and carried forward from 2007-08).

• Continue the top paper awards. (Re-institution of the two $151 "best paper" awards in 2008 may explain part of the 50 per cent jump in paper submissions for Boston 2009).

I wish to record my deep appreciation for the devoted service to our group in 2008-09 by fellow officers Mary Beth Callie, Deborah Chung, Burton St. John, Kirsten A. Johnson, Glenn Scott, Jeff South, Serena Carpenter and Clyde Bentley.

Citizen journalism arrives in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe's 3MG Media group, which publishes four online newspapers, has opened its servers to citizen journalists.

Why? So that, the group says, "our readers will become an integral part of our news gathering efforts."

It will give Zimbabweans an opportunity to interact and participate in information and events that shape their daily lives.

If you live in Zimbabwe, or feel Zimbabwean, you may write to citizen@3mgmedia.ca for more information.

"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.

AllVoices giving cash incentives for high quality citizen journalism

Because "citizen journalism only works if the content is high quality," AllVoices is offering cash incentives until the end of the year.

Citizens, aspiring journalists, writers, bloggers, students, photographers and videographers from around the world . . . will be rewarded based on the quality of their submissions, response from the community and strength of their brand . . . in the following three categories:

Stringer
First time or infrequent contributors in the process of building a social network based around their news. Stringers have tremendous potential to build their brand and make money by leveraging the Allvoices platform.
• Per 1,000 page views: $0.25
• Quality: No copyright violations (text or photos)
• Audience: Minimum of 10,000 views and 25 fans

Reporter
Reporters generate a lot of attention to their contributions. People in their Allvoices social network respect a Reporter’s opinion and content.
• Per 1,000 page views: $1.00
• Quality: No copyright violations (text or photos)
• Audience: Minimum of 25,000 views and 50 fans

Anchor
Anchors are contributors who have a tremendous following within the Allvoices community. Anchors exert influence beyond their social network, and their work is closely followed.
• Per 1,000 page views: $2.00
• Quality: No copyright violations (text or photos)
• Audience: Minimum of 100,000 views and 75 fans

More here.

Also see: AllVoices now accepts citizen contributions via SMS
And: AllVoices pioneers credibility ratings
And: AllVoices claims a leap in popularity

CCJIG bib updated with three dozen new titles

Consider your summer reading list ready.

Sue Ellen Christian, our group's veritable bibliographer, has updated her May 2008 listing with more than three dozen newly published titles relevant to public/participatory journalism.

The update, starting page 12, is available here (pdf, 85.3 kb).

On behalf of CCJIG I thank Sue Ellen for her generous effort given the many demands on her time.

Can watchdog Netizens bark or bite outside of the Internet?

Some twelve years ago Ronda Hauben and son Michael co-wrote a pathbreaking book which introduced the notional "Netizen."

Today Ms. Hauben has posted a thought-provoking comment, culled from a 2008 lecture based on the book, at the pioneering citizen journalism site OhMyNews. Check it out.

[Michael] Hauben explained that those in government will abuse their power if they are allowed to do so. He proposed that "people need to keep a watch over those in government in order to make sure they are working in the interests of the many."

The question raised, then, is whether the Net and Netizen are able to have an impact on the offline world, on the power of government and of the mainstream media.

More here.

Picture courtesy of cnii.com.cn

Also see: "Hyperlocal Web journalism meets civic, intellectual and social needs"
And: Mainstream media sites increasingly welcome citizen participation
And: Community blogs, "a new breed of watchdog"
And: Citizen journalism will complement "public media 2.0," says white paper
Finally: A sustainable model emerges: Use collective intelligence but fact-check with journalists

Pew study contrasts citizen sites v. blogs v. sites tied to legacy media

Pew's State of the News Media 2009 survey examines, among other things, "363 journalism sites in 46 markets (145 citizen journalism sites and 218 tied to commercial media)."

Led by professors Margaret Duffy, Esther Thorson, Stephen Lacy and Daniel Riffe the study compares citizen news blogs, citizen news sites, and sites tied to legacy media.

It finds

[C]lear differences between citizen blogs that primarily offer commentary (along with links to already reported information) and a new array of citizen news sites that also do original reporting. The broader citizen news sites were more interactive, more transparent and more likely to use citizen content. Blogs, while easy to create and set up, were much more limited and less open. Even legacy media now surpass blogs in many of the characteristics that citizen media were once supposed to represent.

Among the findings:

• Blogs were the least the likely to allow citizens to contribute — even to post comments or e-mail the site. The leaders in such interactivity were citizen news sites.

• Legacy media excelled in creating innovative ways for people to download or receive content.

• Legacy sites were also the most transparent about their policies and expectations for users.

• One area where legacy media trailed both citizen blogs and news sites was in providing links within their news stories to outside material. Legacy sites were more than twice as likely as citizen sites to offer no links to outside material.

• On the other hand, the citizen sites linked to legacy news sites twice as often as legacy sites linked to citizen sites, with the citizen sites using the legacy sites as their “news” source.

The nature of the content on the three types of sites varied fairly sharply. Legacy sites provided the greatest percent of news (89%), close to double that of citizen news sites (56%), and three times that of blog content (27%).

More here.

Wordcloud courtesy of Alfred Hermida

Also see: "I'll believe in the triumph of citizen journalism when I see it"

Citizen journalism workshop in Bangalore on May 9

On Saturday May 9 Citizen Matters, the Web magazine published with open source software in Bangalore, India, will host a three-hour workshop "to help citizen journalists understand what it takes to do credible reporting."

[The workshop] is for the part-time blogger who wants to sharpen his skills or for any civic-minded person with a hankering to contribute to a website or media outlet. By the end of the session, the participant will have a better sense of what it takes to produce good journalism.

Kanchan Kaur, vice dean of the Indian Institute of Journalism & New Media, and Ralph Frammolino, award-winning reporter formerly of the Los Angeles Times, will conduct the workshop.

Details here.

Also see: Some thoughts on citizen journalism and Mumbai
And: Criminal charge against Orkut activist frays freedom of expression in India

"Newspapers will not be replaced by any single model"

Will newspapers be run out of existence by online news sites?

Sarah de Crescenzo, student reporter at the University of California San Diego's Guardian, writes if they are, "[W]e need to make sure we don’t discard journalism along with them."

In choosing a new business model, you should ask yourself why journalism exists in the first place.

Read her why here.

Also see: Citizen journalism will complement "public media 2.0," says white paper
And: Pulitzers, a humbling experience for Internet journalists
And: Dan Gillmor: Be skeptical of everything, but not equally
Finally: A sustainable model emerges: Use collective intelligence but fact-check with journalists

Can citizen journalism unshackle us from structure, restore a sense of autonomy?

I am reading Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain's book titled The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it (Yale University Press, 2008; download free via Creative Commons).

Strange. It is making me think of citizen journalism.

Mr. Zittrain narrates on pages 127-28:

The Dutch city of Drachten has undertaken an unusual experiment in traffic management. The roads serving forty-five thousand people are "verkeersbordvrij": free of nearly all road signs. Drachten is one of several European test sites for a traffic planning approach called "unsafe is safe." The city has removed its traffic signs, parking meters, and even parking spaces. The only rules are that drivers should yeild to those on their right at an intersection, and that parked cars blocking others will be towed.

The result so far is counterintuitive: a dramatic improvement in vehicular safety. Without signs to obey mechanically (or, as studies have shown, disobey seventy percent of the time), people are forced to drive more mindfully -- operating their cars with more care and attention to the surrounding circumstances. They communicate more with pedestrians, bicyclists, and other drivers using hand signals and eye contact. They see other drivers rather than other cars . . . "The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people's sense of personal responsibility dwindles."

It's a fine argument.

I am no anarchist but I can see that the nature of rules is to preclude the individual's thoughtfulness of others. The presumption of disorder questions the individual's inherent chivalry; consequently, it can drain social capital.

Similarly, the alphabet restricts our thinking to our command of it, the structure of news reporting impedes our free appreciation of an event, and so on.

My point is that in this context, citizen journalism offers a whiff of fresh air.

Perhaps the unrestricted, market-oriented offerings of citizen journalists will free the individual of the straitjacket of standardization in journalistic practice.

Perhaps the unrestricted, market-oriented offerings of citizen journalists will help the individual recover a measure of libertarian autonomy.

Perhaps.

So is citizen journalism some sort of panacea? Hardly. To quote Mr. Zittrain again (p. 216):

The constraints . . . [will] now come not only from the well-organized governments or firms of Privacy 1.0, but from a few people generatively drawing upon the labors of many to greatly impact rights otherwise guaranteed by a legal system.

Also see: Citizen journalism will complement "public media 2.0," says white paper
And: Pulitzers, a humbling experience for Internet journalists
And: Dan Gillmor: Be skeptical of everything, but not equally
Finally: A sustainable model emerges: Use collective intelligence but fact-check with journalists

Dan Gillmor: Be skeptical of everything, but not equally skeptical of everything

Oracles don't have to be mystics, or sport white beards, or live in Greece. They can be clean shaven, courtly and live in Arizona.

To the oldest of the inane questions, "Is blogging journalism?," Dan Gillmor, the veritable oracle of citizen journalism, responds:

"Oh, God, I can't wait for the day when that question disappears from the world, because it's just such the wrong question," he says. "Some blogging is journalism, most is not. Let's move on to something more interesting." . . .

"The question we should be asking is, what is journalism?"

In Gillmor's view, journalism is defined by certain principles. Among them: skepticism, accuracy, fairness, thoroughness, transparency, independence and keeping an open mind. He believes we should replace the old, impossible notion of "objectivity" with informed, critical judgment. And journalists should treat the process as a conversation, not a lecture. That means listening to more than the official sources.

How to enhance the quality of journalism? Mr. Gillmor places the onus on news consumers.

We've got the supply side pretty well covered. There are all kinds of media being created. Certainly there are lots of problems, but lots of opportunities, and it's pretty exciting what's going on.

One of the places we're really lagging is the demand side. All the supply in the world won't matter if people don't demand something better than they're getting. People who've been consumers of media have to become activists in their consumption. They can't just be passive consumers, because the result is the generally crappy state of journalism that we have today in all respects. . . .

I haven't stopped caring about helping people do good journalism, whether it's traditional or citizen or whatever you want to call it. But if we don't turn the consumers of media into active or activist-type consumers, which means in part taking actual responsibility for what we read as opposed to just letting it show up and not being satisfied, people will be missing something that citizenship should include, which is to be active in how you get your information.

Mr. Gillmor pulls no punches.

Check out the good interview with Fiona Morgan of the Independent, published from North Carolina's Triangle.

Image courtesy of Jeff Risley

Also see: Citizen journalism will complement "public media 2.0," says white paper
And: Pulitzers, a humbling experience for Internet journalists
And: Citizen journalism welcome but must be edited, says Scripps publisher
Finally: A sustainable model emerges: Use collective intelligence but fact-check with journalists

Hyperlocal site seeks to explore south LA's "wealth of characters, stories and lessons"

Bill Celis of the University of Southern California introduces Intersections, a J-Lab-funded community Web site which would highlight "untold stories" from blue collar neighborhoods in south Los Angeles.

In Mr. Celis' words the site would, rather ambitiously, let "South LA residents . . . consume all the news about their communities – good and bad – on a computer, on radio, or via cell phone."

[R]esidents themselves will have a great voice in determining our news coverage through their contributions and feedback. . . .

Our citizen journalists include teachers, students, South LA residents, all writing about the rhythm of urban life in its various incarnations. They also include high school bloggers who also produce slide shows as part of Intersection's high school mentoring program spearheaded by USC Annenberg second-year graduate journalism student Emily Henry. One 12th grade student group at Crenshaw High School, just south of the USC's main campus, explored the impact of the plummeting economy by interviewing day laborers. Others reported on teenage pregnancy by visiting with Crenshaw's teen mothers. Racial profiling was scrutinized by yet another Crenshaw group, with students interviewing security guards and people who believe they had been racially profiled by the police.

More introduction here.

Also see: SPJ partners with Helium to champion citizen journalism
Also see: Mainstream media sites increasingly welcome citizen participation
And: Veteran editor champions hyperlocal Web journalism
And: Community blogs, "a new breed of watchdog"
And: Citizen journalism will complement "public media 2.0," says white paper
Finally: A sustainable model emerges: Use collective intelligence but fact-check with journalists

Citizen journalism welcome but must be edited, says Scripps publisher

Competitor Daily News reports that Memphis' E.W. Scripps-owned 168-year-old newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, has made "recent moves that severely cut the reporting staff, eliminated classified ads from the already thin Monday and Tuesday print editions and an admission that the [Appeal] probably won’t be covering less urgent topics in the future."

Appeal editor Chris Peck responds, “If we run out of people . . . , then we’re going to turn to freelancers and more community-generated content.”

Yet publisher Joseph Pepe, who insists the Appeal is profitable, seems to have rather strong views of that sort of content.

“All blogging is citizen journalism,” he told The Memphis News. “In a lot of cases it’s unsubstantiated. It’s not objective. It’s not edited content. It leans more toward opinion and subjectivity. Anytime we have citizen journalism, it’s still going to get edited. It’s still going to get verified. It’s going to get checked for facts before we post it. We apply the same rules to citizen-sponsored journalism as we do to our top line reporter.”

So does Otis L. Sanford, the Appeal's deputy managing editor.

Sanford said citizen journalism “has its place” and has been discussed since the early 1990s. It shows up in the pages he governs in the form of opinion pieces and letters to the editor. Non-newspaper employees also serve on the [Appeal's] editorial board.

“Now, I am a traditional, old-fashioned journalist,” Sanford said. “And I believe that while citizen journalism has its place, I’m not one – and maybe this is an old-fashioned view – but I’m not one to think that citizen journalism can ever take the place of the traditional journalism that I know and love. I just don’t believe that.”

Full story here.

Also read: A sustainable model emerges: Use collective intelligence but fact-check with journalists
And: Can selling news via the Web save newspapers?
And: Mainstream media sites increasingly welcome citizen participation

"About the triumph of citizen journalism, I'll believe it when I see it"

Of Pew's State of the Media 2009 report its authors say:

"We found that legacy sites offered almost double the percent of news (89 percent) in comparison with citizen news sites (56 percent) and three times that of blogs (27 percent)," said Margaret Duffy, faculty chair in strategic communication in the Journalism School [and one of the three co-authors of the report]. "The topic coverage on blogs and citizen new sites is generally narrow and the sourcing is light." . . .

"One of the biggest surprises we found was that mainstream media Web sites were almost as welcoming to citizen participation as citizen journalism sites, and they were far more welcoming than blogs," [Esther] Thorson [another co-author] said. "Many industry professionals hope that citizen sites will democratize news media, but that hope has yet to be realized."

Stephen Hume, a columnist for the Vancouver Sun, responds to the Pew report:

[T]he priorities of citizen journalists appear remarkably similar to those for which bloggers roundly condemn old media journalists while praising the transformation of coverage by new media.

Perhaps more important, the survey found transparency and accountability remain a critical issue for both citizen journalism sites and for blogs. . . .

The Pew report also found that citizen media sites offered little in the way of helping people contact anyone through standard mail or by telephone, “or even getting a sense of where the people creating the website were located. Only three in 10 citizen sites and a mere one in 10 citizen blogs provided this information.” . . .

[W]hen it comes to the triumph of citizen journalism, I guess I’m like the proverbial guy from Missouri, I’ll believe it when I see it.

More here.

Collective intelligence or pooled ignorance?

Here is how Cal Beverly, managing editor of the Iowa City Press-Citizen, takes a question about citizen journalism from "Lauren Leak, a homeschool student."

The question:

Joe ‘the Plumber’ just recently traveled to Israel for four days on a citizen journalist mission. What is your opinion regarding citizen journalism, blogging, etc.?

Mr. Beverly's response:

My high school math teacher was something of a cynic when it came to “crowd wisdom.” “You people are just pooling your ignorance,” she would tell us so-smart juniors. It took a few years and some life experience for me to appreciate her hard-won wisdom.

So, really, how smart is the citizen journalist? Can you trust her “facts”? Or does a confusing set of sometimes contradictory facts require some sort of trained observer to sort out what’s relevant and what is just “noise”?

Your generation will get to determine the answer to that question.

Complete post here.

Veteran editor: Hyperlocal Web journalism meets "civic, intellectual and social needs"

Europe's coffee houses of the early 18th century may well have been recreated in America's hyperlocal Web forums -- except for the coffee itself.

Jack Driscoll, 40-year veteran of the Boston Globe, scholar at the MIT Media Lab, is the recent author of Couch Potatoes Sprout: The Rise of Online Community Journalism (a copy of which he has generously gifted me).

Mr. Driscoll contributes to Rye Reflections, a citizen journalism site run mostly by retired residents of Rye, New Hampshire. He says about that site:

“It’s almost like the old-time discussion clubs where people want to have some sort of substantive activities,” Driscoll said. “I think this meets civic needs and intellectual needs and social needs.” The payoff for participants, he says, is the kind of intellectual stimulation that studies show lead to longeity and better health. “For the participants, there’s value. And for the community, because the participants are reporting on their communities, the communities benefit.”

Yet Mr. Driscoll sees a futility in overly relying on citizen journalism:

I do have this huge concern that a lot of people have misunderstood the value of good reporting. I’m afraid we’re going to lose a whole tier of quality professionalism in the media. The impact of that, I think, is going to be huge. What I’ve been involved in is hyperlocal. But who’s covering state government? Who’s covering the courts? Who’s covering science and medicine? The Globe just closed its science and medicine section, and when I heard that I nearly died. I was the one who started it.

Check out his interview here.

Image courtesy of Jim Cerny.

Also see: Mainstream media sites increasingly welcome citizen participation
And: Community blogs, "a new breed of watchdog"
And: Citizen journalism will complement "public media 2.0," says white paper
And: 3G technology promises more power to citizen journalists
Finally: A sustainable model emerges: Use collective intelligence but fact-check with journalists

Why citizen journalism may not be for some

The Sacramento News & Review -- the alternative newspaper which once employed the late Gary Webb, whose exposé of the CIA's role in smuggling cocaine into Los Angeles was featured in Kevin Booth's 2007 documentary American Drug War -- turns 20 this month.

Like many other papers, the News & Review is facing economic travails. Cosmo Garvin, an editor, offers this "Bite":

[W]eirdly enough, recent numbers show that SN&R has more readers—of its print version—than ever. Count in the online readership, which is modest but growing—and it’s clear that readership is strong—it’s just ad sales, the economy, things that are out of a mere reporter’s control—that are killing us.

As a result,

Last year at this time, we were running a lean operation. This year, we’re rail thin.

Might publishing citizen journalism offer a solution? There's something to be said about Mr. Garvin's pluck.

Is there something to be learned from the Sacramento Press, a local experiment in “citizen journalism” that launched a few months ago?

A reporter friend, who recently left the business, says she “couldn’t be less impressed” with the Press’ mix of news releases, bloglike opinion posts and, on a good day, actual reporting. But credit them with trying something new(ish), and give them a chance to develop. If they’d just credit our photos when they use them and keep their fliers out of our news racks—Bites would say the more the merrier.

But no, the Sacramento Press’ “citizen journalism” model won’t work for us, any more than the [Sacramento] Bee’s business model will work for us. We won’t be reprinting releases from the Sacramento Police Department. And we won’t be shoveling money at shareholders and multimillionaire CEOs.

We will pick up a phone, go knock on a door, go to the show, ask a lot of questions and tell readers something they didn’t already know. And whether you get that via Twitter or read it on the bus or have it beamed directly into your brain plugs—it will still be free.

Find the whole "Bite" here.

Also read: "The future lies in alternative journalism, not citizen journalism"
And: "It's all about the content. It's not about the medium"
And: Newspapers' closure adversely affects political engagement, study finds
And: "Media innovation cannot be dependent on advertisers"
And: Did the Newspaper Preservation Act encourage newspapers to ignore the competition?
Finally: Should the newspaper industry get a bailout?

Expert on Pulitzers says prizes must better recognize online journalism

Roy J. Harris Jr., author of a fine tome about "the most prestigious of the Pulitzers," thinks the time has come to "reinvent" the prizes, albeit without lifting their "bar" on citizen journalism.

From yesterday's Christian Science Monitor:

[I]f the Pulitzers recognized excellence across a wider range of print and electronic content, they could help lift journalism once more. . . .

[O]ne way to break the ice is to create special categories for online entries. But Pulitzer purists blanch at the idea, noting that over the years categories have been drawn to consider the quality of the work, rather than its source. A more sensible approach – one that points the way to the Pulitzers' 21st-century standard of excellence for all text-based journalism – is to broaden eligibility further, to all US online news operations, regardless of affiliation. That would allow magazine and broadcast-based online reporters to compete, too, while still letting the Pulitzers hold the line (for now) at barring citizen journalism, such as blogs and photos taken by individuals on a cellphone.

Also see: Pulitzers, a humbling experience for Internet journalists
And: Tabloid Baby piqued Pulitzer entry was rejected