Dan Gillmors viktiga bok We the Media

Dan Gillmor är en högt respekterad kolumnist på Silicon Valley-tidningen San Jose Mercury News.

Han har just skrivit en bra bok:

We the Media om hur interaktiva bloggar radikalt håller på att förändra nyhetsvärlden.

Så här skriver Gillmor:

In the 20th century, making the news was almost entirely the
province of journalists; the people we covered, or “newsmakers”;
and the legions of public relations and marketing
people who manipulated everyone. The economics of publishing
and broadcasting created large, arrogant institutions—call it Big
Media, though even small-town newspapers and broadcasters
exhibit some of the phenomenon’s worst symptoms.
Big Media, in any event, treated the news as a lecture. We
told you what the news was. You bought it, or you didn’t. You
might write us a letter; we might print it. (If we were television
and you complained, we ignored you entirely unless the complaint
arrived on a libel lawyer’s letterhead.) Or you cancelled
your subscription or stopped watching our shows. It was a
world that bred complacency and arrogance on our part. It was
a gravy train while it lasted, but it was unsustainable.
Tomorrow’s news reporting and production will be more of
a conversation, or a seminar. The lines will blur between producers
and consumers, changing the role of both in ways we’re
only beginning to grasp now. The communication network itself
will be a medium for everyone’s voice, not just the few who can
afford to buy multimillion-dollar printing presses, launch satellites,
or win the government’s permission to squat on the
public’s airwaves.
This evolution—from journalism as lecture to journalism as
a conversation or seminar—will force the various communities
of interest to adapt. Everyone, from journalists to the people we
cover to our sources and the former audience, must change their
ways. The alternative is just more of the same.
We can’t afford more of the same. We can’t afford to treat
the news solely as a commodity, largely controlled by big institutions.
We can’t afford, as a society, to limit our choices. We
can’t even afford it financially, because Wall Street’s demands
on Big Media are dumbing down the product itself.


Och här är innehållsförteckningen:

Introduction

1. From Tom Paine to Blogs and Beyond

2. The Read-Write Web

3. The Gates Come Down

4. Newsmakers Turn the Tables

5. The Consent of the Governed

6. Professional Journalists Join the Conversation

7. The Former Audience Joins the Party

8. Next Steps

9. Trolls, Spin, and the Boundaries of Trust

10. Here Come the Judges (and Lawyers)

11. The Empires Strike Back

12. Making Our Own News

Epilogue and Acknowledgments

Det här är en viktig bok från en viktig observatör av dagens web-värld. Liksom det mesta som Gillmor skriver så är den värd att läsa.