We Just Have To Go Do The Work

Nicholas Lemann, in a story on blogging and citizen journalism in the August 7 issue of The New Yorker:
[N]ew media in their fresh youth [produce] a distinctive, hot-tempered rhetorical style.
…transformative in their capabilities…a mass medium with a short lead time — cheap…and easily accessible to people of all classes and political inclinations.
And quoting author Mark [...]

Richard Sambrook Talks Citizen Journalism

I’m not sure what to think of Richard Sambrook appearing to struggle to find a place for traditional journalism in the age of the internet, but the story’s worth a read.

To Blog Or Not To Blog

A friend revealed his reticence to blogging recently by explaining that he didn’t want to create a trail of work and opinions that could limit his future career choices. Fair point, perhaps.
We’ve all heard stories of bloggers who’ve lost jobs as a result of the content of their posts. And if you believe the [...]

Political Blogging Protected By FEC

Way back near the end of 2005, Lot 49 reported that the Federal Election Commission had basically ruled that bloggers are journalists:
The Federal Election Commission today issued an advisory opinion that finds the Fired Up network of blogs qualifies for the “press exemption” to federal campaign finance laws. The press exemption, as defined by Congress, [...]

Who’s Afraid Of Wikipedia?

Arguments about Wikipedia’s value and authority will rage for quite a while, but it’s interesting to see where the lines are being drawn.
On the one had we’ve got a 12 year-old pointing out errors in Encyclopaedia Britannica (via Many2Many) and now on the other side we’ve got John Seigenthaler, a former editorial page editor at [...]

Blog Value

The sale of Weblogs Inc. to AOL last month for $25+ million got a lot of bloggers excited. Tristan Louis did the math and put the sale value into perspective against the number of incoming links the the Weblogs Inc. properties. It’s an interesting assertion of the value of the Google Economy, no?
The various properties [...]

Attack Of The Blogs (Yeah)!

Online reaction to the Forbes cover story Attack of the Blogs has been quick and strong, and given the doom and gloom language, it’s not surprising:
Blogs started a few years ago as a simple way for people to keep online diaries. Suddenly they are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear [...]

Tech Tuesdays: Blogs and Blogging

Note: these are my presentation notes for a brown bag discussion with library faculty and university IT staff today. This may become a series…[[pageindex]]
More: my presentation slides and the Daily Show video.
Introduction
Public awareness of blogs seems to begin during the years of campaigning leading up to the 2004 election, but many people credit bloggers for [...]

What Bloggers Need To Know About Cahill v. Doe

Wendy Seltzer alerts us to the Delaware Supreme Court’s ruling last week in Cahill v. Doe, a case that tested our rights to anonymity online, as well as the standard for judging defamation.
As it turns out, the court decided against the plaintiff, a city councilman, and protected the identity of “Proud Citizen,” who the councilman [...]

Linking Bias

Danah Boyd posted about the biases of links over at Many2Many the other day. She looked for patterns in a random set of 500 blogs tracked by Technorati as well as the 100 top blogs tracked by Technorati. She found patterns in who keeps blogrolls and who is in them, as well as patterns about [...]