The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Harvard: the econ session
: The session I’m Oprahing is up in an hour or so. I’m going to start not by blathering (because I do that all the time) but by asking the assembled smart folks how we can and should change journalism and the journalism business. Links to my prep documents, as background:
1. The economic pressure on the news business.
2. Strategic questions about changing the news business.
3. The ethics imputed in the community of citizens’ journalism and institutional journalism.
Question for the panel:
With the prospective advent of “community-based bloggers” writing under the auspices of corporate media (be it something like the New York Times or Ed Cone’s paper) what kind of standards/ethics will be demanded of these bloggers? What are the prospects for these standards being informally imposed on “independent” bloggers in order for them to be taken seriously?
Godspeed, Jeff =)
Hope you remembered your blogcards ;-)
I’m going to start not by blathering (because I do that all the time) but by asking the assembled smart folks how we can and should change journalism and the journalism business.
How about offering classes on how to become a funeral home director? At least that job has a future.
Jeff:
I just read your quote on Weinberger’s blog: “Objectivity is a sink hole. What we really want to do is to be honest and tell the truth.”
At the risk of sounding like one of those post-modern relativists, what makes you think that your truth, based upon your unique set of experiences and values, is the Truth? Maybe you have a POV that has more authenticity than a corporate media newsreader, and the Web will judge that, but “truth”?
Plus, we can’t be too jaded not to seek objectivity when we can establish it.
Bill: I was referring to the discussion of objectivity, which is numbing in its sameness.
I think you need to clarify how you’re using the term “ethics.” You seem to mean ethics as in “a work ethic” or a “Protestant ethic.” What you describe has little to do with “ethics” in the sense of moral philosophy.
Battleground *FOR THE* Common Ground (long post)