Mitch Glaser posts on the final day of WeMedia. Go read the entire post, but here is the choice quote for me:
Outside in the hall after the panel, NYU professor and PressThink blogger Jay Rosen told me that Lasica and I had not gotten through to them. Rosen had raised his hand but wasn’t called upon, but had a great analogy of what was wrong with MSM’s approach to citizen media.“They are trying to change the vocabulary without changing the grammar,” he said. “They use the new vocabulary [of new media] but they are not changing their mindset, and accepting a loss of control.”
In other words, they might start blogs or podcasts or accept comments on stories, but they still believe their work is coming down from on high atop the mountain of Eternal Truth. The new truth of we media — lowercased — is that the media elite have lost the lock on media control, the old style of getting into a room and deciding what is news for the rest of us.
What I have always said is that many newspapers adopt the tools of social media, but not the community or methodology.
Visitor Comments
I came away from the conference feeling that Big Media is Hellbent on not avoiding the catastrophe that exists in their near term future. Personally I think this is sad, but most of these once important companies are going to matter only to themselves. They assume an authority they do not have. They assume a controlk they do not have. They see a nosedive into oblivion as a longer-than-average down cylcle.
Posted by: shel israel | February 10, 2007 9:50 PM
Hi Josh...it was great seeing you...
part of the problem comes from the fact that they rarely have anyone on panels who isn't looking to monetize their blog. It's one thing to spin a business out of what one is doing with blogs, completely another to want to rely solely on the income generated from one's blogging efforts.
My H.O. on it: they need to have some folks on panels who just love to meet and converse, who use blogs as introductions to conversations, not as marketing or media platforms/tools. Then, maybe they'll get the "zen" of the whole thing..
ah, just call me a cockeyed optimist...
Posted by: tish grier | February 12, 2007 3:21 PM