Reactions to story from The New York Times

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  Daily Digest: OffTheBus Causes Traditional Media Sleepless Nights

  http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/27758/daily_digest_o...
  131 days ago in techPresident – How the candidates are using the web, and how the web is using them. · Authority: 847

  The Web on the Candidates At the bleeding edge of citizen journalism is OffTheBus, a project of the Huffington Post, and in this, the month of its one-year anniversary, OTB gets the New York Times treatment. OffTheBus is busily figuring out how to weave
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  You're either on the bus or...

  http://weblogsky.com/2008/07/youre_either_on_the_bus_or.html
  131 days ago in Weblogsky: Jon Lebkowsky's Guide to the Universe · Authority: 42

  Friends and acquaintances who are familiar with my net.politics investigations, which were most visible around the Dean campaign, the 2004 and 2006 election seasons, and via Extreme Democracy, wondered why I was MIA when Netroots Nation came to Austin.
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  Times to Raise Cover Price 25 Cents

  http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/07/times_to_raise_cover_pr...
  131 days ago in Daily Intelligencer - New York Magazine · Authority: 2,415

  Arthur Sulzberger Jr., putting on a brave face. Photo: Patrick McMullanMEDIA In an attempt to stay afloat as the economy withers, the New York Times is raising its cover price 25 cents, to $1.50. It's also cutting more jobs. "We have seen the
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  O Interns! Our Interns!

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/15/o-interns-our-inter...
  109 days ago in The News · Authority: 53

  It's a sad day in HuffPoLand — we are saying goodbye to our wonderful interns: Sean Morrow, Scout Opatut, Joe Satran, and Juli Weiner. They were awesome, and not only because they would come back from Intern Lunch with cookies for the rest of us. Also because they are smart and efficient and helpful and great to have around and we will miss them. A lot! But they had a great summer (they say, and we assume, because the fun never stops here at HuffPo central), and also they got to enjoy their debut in the New York Times (that's Joe, Scout and Juli from right to left). As if college can give them that kind of experience! Blogging is an education in and of itself, grasshoppers. We were proud to share our secrets with you, and your cookies with us. Best of luck to you all going forward, and don't forget to blog, darlings! Left to right: Video intern Sean Morrow, Blog interns Juli Weiner, Scout Opatut, and returning champion Joe Satran. Godspeed, gang! Today's interns are tomorrow's media moguls, and when that happens please remember how nice I was in this post.
• 

  O Interns! Our Interns!

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/15/o-interns-our-inter...
  109 days ago in Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post · Authority: 29,213

  It's a sad day in HuffPoLand — we are saying goodbye to our wonderful interns: Sean Morrow, Scout Opatut, Joe Satran, and Juli Weiner. They were awesome, and not only because they would come back from Intern Lunch with cookies for the rest of us. Also because they are smart and efficient and helpful and great to have around and we will miss them. A lot! But they had a great summer (they say, and we assume, because the fun never stops here at HuffPo central), and also they got to enjoy their debut in the New York Times (that's Joe, Scout and Juli from right to left). As if college can give them that kind of experience! Blogging is an education in and of itself, grasshoppers. We were proud to share our secrets with you, and your cookies with us. Best of luck to you all going forward, and don't forget to blog, darlings! Left to right: Video intern Sean Morrow, Blog interns Juli Weiner, Scout Opatut, and returning champion Joe Satran. Godspeed, gang! Today's interns are tomorrow's media moguls, and when that happens please remember how nice I was in this post.
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  Citizen Journalism vs. Citizen Papparazzi

  http://jeannette-smyth.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/07/citizen...
  129 days ago in Theory According to Chuck Berry · No authority yet

  The <a href = "http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/us/politics/23web-seelye.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=amanda%20michel&st=cse&oref=slogin">story</a> in yesterday's NYT about the OfftheBus.net, the Huffington-supported citizen journalism site makes some, or suggests some, points about the infant medium. <UL><li>The number of OTB correspondents increased from 300 to 7500 after the Mayhill Fowler scoop in April on Obama's "bitter" small town white men comment. <li>It didn't say how many of this 7200 increase are Republican dirty tricksters, or what the OTB peoples' criteria for resume and fact-checking are. <li>If the bitter comment is OTB's greatest story, it suggests a number of things about what the OTB citizen journos believe citizen journalism to be: political papparazzism. Citizen papps catching the celebs with their pants down, and feeding into the pointless 24/7 CNN news cycle which obliterates substance with a shitstorm of minutiae. Call it papp style. <li> It could be suggested that OTB's greatest story is 800 detailed profiles of the superdelegates. Call it wiki style. <li>Obama precinct captains are covering platform meetings (of which party the piece does not suggest). OTB says this is OK because all citizen journos must reveal in writing their political affiliations and contributions. This is the very privileging of special interests -- ie., the Obama moveon geek groundswell, which I suggest is overwhelmingly white boy and white bread and privileged by their access to a $1500 computer -- which OTB decries. <li>A white boy alone on a laptop is not a revolutionary. He is often a libertarian of the Ayn Rand persuasion, which edges into the kind of ubermensch fascism, and demagoguery, and feeding frenzy, this world has had its fill of.<li>The NYT is all over this, as is the rest of the traditional press. <li>I am amused, because that while the use of the intarwebs for barely body temp political journalism is news, the news created by the citizen papps is minuscule, and the trad press coverage is mostly industrial spying.</UL> The virtue so far, I venture, of citizen journalism is the papp or opticon effect. But 300 people laboring to produce the bitter molehill strikes me as a brilliant illustration of what one law student's professor said. (I am outing a locked entry. Please accept my apologies.) And that is, <i>law review is a waste of the resources of the truly talented.</i> And there's the whole starfucking thing. It gives amateurs (of which newsrooms themselves are totally full) a hardon to catch a politician making a basically harmless gaffe. It's feral and it's beneath the dignity of everyone who does it and everyone who is forced to read it. It keeps young people, women and people of color, away from the polls in droves, which is the death of the democracy. I do believe the citizen papps are ultimately the minions of Fox and CNN. The <a href = "http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/07/060807fa_fact1">Nick Lemann</a> piece on citizen journalism (he is the Columbia J school dean) makes some of these points, a couple of years previous to the Mayhill Fowler bitter scoop. His main one is, the proof is in the pudding. Reporters get stories. Big ones. Like Abu Ghraib or how Enron was responsible for the California brownouts. No WMD. It's about massive, unrelenting, quotidien, life-and-death, white collar crime. Gotcha just doesn't begin cut it. The story is not the stray brain fart. The story is the system.
• 

  Citizen Journalism 2

  http://purejuice.livejournal.com/1207294.html
  129 days ago in writing · Authority: 3

  The story in yesterday's NYT about the OfftheBus.net, the Huffington-supported citizen journalism site makes some, or suggests some, points about the infant medium. The number of OTB correspondents increased from 300 to 7500 after the Mayhill Fowler scoop in April on Obama's "bitter" small town white men comment. It didn't say how many of this 7200 increase are Republican dirty tricksters, or what the OTB peoples' criteria for resume and fact-checking are. If the bitter comment is OTB's greatest story, it suggests a number of things about what the OTB citizen journos believe citizen journalism to be: political papparazzism. Citizen papps catching the celebs with their pants down, and feeding into the pointless 24/7 CNN news cycle which obliterates substance with a shitstorm of minutiae. Call it papp style. It could be suggested that OTB's greatest story is 800 detailed profiles of the superdelegates. Call it wiki style. Obama precinct captains are covering platform meetings (of which party the piece does not suggest). OTB says this is OK because all citizen journos must reveal in writing their political affiliations and contributions. This is the very privileging of special interests -- ie., the Obama moveon geek groundswell, which I suggest is overwhelmingly white boy and white bread and privileged by their access to a $1500 computer -- which OTB decries. A white boy alone on a laptop is not a revolutionary. He is often a libertarian of the Ayn Rand persuasion, which edges into the kind of ubermensch fascism, and demagoguery, and feeding frenzy, this world has had its fill of.The NYT is all over this, as is the rest of the traditional press. I am amused, because that while the use of the intarwebs for barely body temp political journalism is news, the news created by the citizen papps is minuscule, and the trad press coverage is mostly industrial spying. The virtue so far, I venture, of citizen journalism is the papp or opticon effect. But 300 people laboring to produce the bitter molehill strikes me as a brilliant illustration of what one law student's professor said. (I am outing a locked entry. Please accept my apologies.) And that is, law review is a waste of the resources of the truly talented. And there's the whole starfucking thing. It gives amateurs (of which newsrooms themselves are totally full) a hardon to catch a politician making a basically harmless gaffe. It's feral and it's beneath the dignity of everyone who does it and everyone who is forced to read it. I do believe the citizen papps are ultimately the minions of Fox and CNN. The Nick Lemann piece (he is the Columbia J school dead) I linked to yesterday makes some of these points, a couple of years previous to the Mayhill Fowler bitter scoop. His main one is, the proof is in the pudding. Reporters get stories. Big ones. Like Abu Ghraib or how Enron was responsible for the California brownouts. No WMD. It's about massive, unrelenting, quotidien, life-and-death, white collar crime. Gotcha just doesn't cut it.

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