Media Re:public

I have been a certified “dead blogger” recently thanks to focusing all writing energy on white paper trying to summarize all the stuff I’ve learning during my wonderful year here at Berkman.

But I did thoroughly enjoy getting some feedback on the current version of the conclusions from a thoughtful group of colleagues inside and outside Berkman yesterday. If you weren’t there, Ethan Zuckerman kindly liveblogged it. His post is more lucid than the talk itself.

Post-factum, the soundbite version of our conclusions is this:

All of the functions that we consider to comprise journalism in the public interest, from reporting to analysis to contextualizing to editing, are more vital than ever.

There are lots of different organizations (commercial and public legacy media, citizen media, web-native commercial media, nonprofits, etc.) who are doing this work in various structures and for various reasons, but they are not doing everything that is desirable, and much of their work is not reaching the public who needs it.

New institutions or new configurations that are possible in the networked digital media environment are needed to make sure that a broad range of audiences are well served and that reporting on topics and populations that are difficult, expensive and commercially unattractive is included in the mix.

How simple. Now, back to work!

At right, the book that I’m speedreading (wishing I’d read before) this week is Jay Hamilton’s All the News That’s Fit to Sell Check it out!

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