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NYT Acknowedges Bloggers Have (Some) Role in The News

NYT Acknowedges Bloggers Have (Some) Role in The News

In the political arena, anyway! The New York Times reports that bloggers offer a perspective on the ground, closer to the events that the mainstream media has a hard time replicating.

That the blog now has a firm place in the choreography of national events ‘€” and in elections perhaps more so than in any other cultural exercise ‘€” is a boon to the democratic process, said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance at Oxford University and a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.

‘€œIn a lot of ways they’€™re helping to set the agenda for the mainstream media in fast-moving events like this,’€? Mr. Zittrain said. ‘€œThey just need to be able to produce enough that’€™s credible quickly to give a lead.’€?

In the light of the crowdsourcing announcments of USA Today, I think it may be one more closer step in the evolution of the delivery of news, and represents the inclusion and validation of bloggers as a kind of “media”. CNN, for example, brought in a bunch of bloggers for a giant “blog party” last night covering the mid-term election in the States … which at times, felt like looking at an exhibition at the zoo (“Honey, don’t come too close — they might blog about you”). But many were given a chance to talk on the air as another ‘talking-head’ pundit, often times, with what seemed like equal footing as the other talking-heads.

In other news, political bloggers may also be better looking — which may have been the reason why they were invited to CNN. As reported in the NYT:

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Constantine Stavropoulos, the owner of the cafe, said he had closed its doors for the ‘€œblog party,’€? which the network periodically broadcast and streamed online. He said he expected the bloggers ‘€” an attractive bunch, he said ‘€” to linger long after the votes were in.

‘€œBloggers look a lot better than I thought they would,’€? Mr. Stavropoulos said

View Comments (3)
  • Tony, just a quick fact check note: Gannett at large will be employing crowdsourcing techniques in their watchdog/investigative journalism projects (their use of user-generated content falls under the crowdsourcing rubric as well). However, as far as I know USA Today will not be implementing these policies. And since both are really driven by local readers, that makes a great deal of sense. Doesn’t mean USA Today isn’t trying to follow us into the 21st Century, per se, but they’ll need to do it in different ways (such as a savvy integration of Web and Print editions, which is already well underway).

    Jeff

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