A major discussion at our blog conference was the relationship between blogs and traditional journalism, aka old media, mainstream media, MSM, media monopoly. Hugh Hewitt's book came up several times.
Jay Rosen from NYU gave a fascinating presentation on his theory that blogging came around at a time when print journalism was particularly vulnerable.
Ethan Zuckerman took notes on the discussion.
Today, Kevin Drum writes that Rosen's argument was an example of "blog triumphantalism" and Rosen responds in the comments.
I'm middle of the road on this one. Part of our research shows that blogs are pretty dependent on the media, despite occassionally catching them making an error. We described bloggers and the media as having a symbiotic relationship.
By the way, Ethan's and Jay's blogs are excellent and worth checking out. Ethan blogs for Global Voices which is a one stop source for international blogs. I deeply admire the activist blogs out there and wish that there were more doing such work.
On his blog, Press Think, Jay Rosen does a great job of summing up debates in the blogosphere and of linking to a variety of sources. When I needed to find out more about the Blogher conference, I went there to get the dirt.
Hi, thanks for this post, and the nice words, but I am from New York University, not Columbia.
Posted by: Jay Rosen | September 19, 2005 at 05:55 PM
sorry, Jay. Fixing it, right now.
Posted by: Laura | September 19, 2005 at 05:57 PM
Jay probably won't like this comment, but I see the death of MSM more tied to the rise of J-school programs and the proliferation of wire services. MSM reporters and editors forgot how to write compelling narrative. Greater space/time constraints don't help, either.
Posted by: Roxanne | September 20, 2005 at 11:25 AM