Another reason to buy a copy of Blog

OK, it's boosting his book. But it links through my associates' link.

PressThink is thinking about blogs and their effect on news. Here's what they think:

News turns from a lecture to a conversation. "Newspaper people (especially) still have the mindset of putting out the edition and then they're done with it," complains Glenn Reynolds. "We used to think that the news was finished when we printed it," says Jeff Jarvis. "But that's when the news now begins." <snip> Some of the pressure the blogs are putting on journalists shows up, then, in the demand for "news as conversation," more of a back-and-forth, less of a pronouncement. This is an idea with long roots in academic journalism that suddenly (as in this year) jumped the track to become part of the news industry's internal dialogue. Whenever that happens to a claim that's "been around," it is because something changed in the world to make it more vulnerable to the extant thought.

Blogs have tapped pools of expertise to correct the mainstream media in some big mistakes. But...

"conversation" is not just about getting things right (important as that is.) It's also about making things more democratic. In 1991, James W. Carey of Columbia University put the goal of conversational journalism this way (the piece is not online, sorry.) The italics are mine: (changed to bold –Karl)

Republics require conversation, often cacaphonous conversation, for they should be noisy places. That conversation has to be informed, of course, and the press has a role in supplying that information. But the kind of information required can be generated only by public conversation; there is simply no substitute for it. We have virtually no idea what it is we need to know until we start talking to someone. Conversation focuses our attention, it engages us... The task of the press is to encourage the conversation of the culture, not to preempt it or substitute for it or supply it with information as a seer from afar.

Supply it with information as a seer from afar. For journalists, that job isn't available any more. And that's why we heard this year the head of the Associated Press say to colleagues: can we stop lecturing people, please?

But then again, this continues a process that has been taking place in talk radio. Talk radio hosts need material to talk about, and for a lot of them, the news is a ready source. Then, if you let people call in and discuss the issues, you need something that'll make your show interesting. People learn very quickly that a string of callers who agree with the host makes for boring radio. (Rush Limbaugh may have been the first popular host to elucidate this principle. He says, quite unabashedly, he screens for callers who will make him look good. In many cases, that means callers who disagree with him, but not so effectively that he loses the argument.)

The result of this is that talk radio audiences have gotten used to talking back to the people from whom they hear news. They won't have this conversation about every issue of the day, because either they or the host isn't interested. But they'll get used to it for many issues. (I bet there's a correlation between listening to talk radio and writing letters to the editor of the paper.)

That blogs are a tool is important. Blogs democratize the talk radio effect. You don't have to hope the talk show host is interested in the same thing you are. You don't have to compete with thousands (or hundreds) (or tens) of other callers, trying to be more interesting than they are. You don't have to hope your letter is one of the few that actually see print in the paper. You can post your opinion, just like I'm doing now. And you can often comment directly on the blogs other people write. At the very least, you can comment in your own blog and link to the item you're commenting on.

Interactive news is not only here to stay, it's going to take over.