January 21, 2005

"WebCred" Conference comments, or Love For The Linklorn

As the "Webcred" "Blogging, Journalism, Credibility" Harvard conference begins, let me make the the probably futile effort of attempting to draw attention to some valuable perspectives. Here are some gems buried in the comments:

If this conference were a news article, I think it would be fair game to point out that it's full of sources and quotes talking about a third party, without including any quotes from that third party. In that situation, I think we'd be within our rights to question that news article's credibility. Given that this conference is about blogging, journalism, and (yes) credibility, I'd like to think the organizers might find that troubling.
("The One True b!X", who actually does unpaid, I mean "citizen's", journalism, at the underattentioned Portland Communique)

How come everybody talks about bloggers in pajamas when all I keep finding are corporate lawyers with ties to Republican Administrations and big, fat corporate clients?

What's going on here?
(Richard Succer, regarding that many A-list right-wing bloggers are not exactly proletarian)

: The ethic of pomposity: We believe in speaking for persons other than ourselves.
: The ethic of narcissism: We love to hear ourselves speak. We can't get enough of ourselves.
: The ethic of humanity: We repeat ourselves, endlessly.
: The ethic of the wank: We believe in linking to people who kiss our ass. Everyone else can kiss our ass.
: The ethic of correction: We believe it is vital to correct errors when we can't weasel out of it. And then we bitch about everyone who mentions our error, and pout.
: The ethic of idiocy: We accuse others of placing peoples' lives in danger by mentioning things we mentioned long ago. We have no shame.
("Jar Jar Vinks", parodying a certain A-lister)

the problem here is that "news" (at least the credible kind) and "business" are mutually exclusive. We can turn news into a "conversation", make it transparent, etc...but we won't unless the delivery of news is separated from the profit motive.
And that ain't happening.
In reality, the changes in the "business model" for news delivery will result not in a conversation with the news consumer, but will be a mirror of the consumer's own prejudices. [...]
This "tailored news" will be the model, because it will provide the business of "news" with an enormous amount of information that the "business" can use to sell advertising that is just as personalized and directed as your news feed.
That's why this conference (and your questions) are really just a bad joke. The war is already over, even if the combatants don't know it yet.... and "democratic government based on an informed citizenry" lost to "corporate profits"
(Paul Lukasiak, GLCQ)