Dan Gillmor's talk Reboot 2003, Copenhagen, Denmark 20JUN03 Impressionistic notes by Cory Doctorow doctorow@craphound.com -- Journalism's new world: * Ubi networks * Powerful new reporting tools * Anyone can publish * Empowers not just the "former audience" but aslo people and orgs we cover * No one knows how to make money at it I was teaching in Hong Kong during the US election, the one that Al Gore won. It was Weds in HK, Tues night in the US, and I was listening to NPR's radio feed over ReadAudio and refreshing CNN consistently. It was as good a report as anyone in the US watching TV. This is new for journos -- readers can roll their own news. This crytallized on 911. Sat images of Manhattan were linked to via mailing lists, before the major media got onto it. Blogs were serious reporting agents. An Afghan American sent an email tha tbubbled up through blogs then Salon, then the major US media, and turned him into a media star. A total unknown made himself known with the help of the net. Trent Lott's nostalgia for segregation: Lott backhandedly endorsed Thurmond's racist past. The major reporters missed the point, but the bloggers got on the story, with help from Democratic movers. Then the big media picked it up. Lott resigned as majority leader. Shuttle disaster: covered in realtime by blogs. Bloggers caught weather radar of the shuttle breaking up, which didn't show up for several days. Anonymous NASA engineers speculated on the cause via mailing lists. We think of journalism as a lecture: I tell you the news, and you either buy it or you don't. If you send us a letter, we might print it. TV stations give no response. This is changing. It's becoming a conversation -- a seminar. There's a leader or a guide. Dan's founding principle: My readers know more than I do. That's not threatening. It's a wonderful opportunity. Technology means people can help journos do a better job. Joe Nacchio: Former CEO of Qwest, a telco monopoly. Gave a presentation at PC Forum, and was whining about how hard it is to raise capital (but he's got a monopoly!). It turns out that a reader in Florida knew that Nacchio was dumping his Qwest stock, as the stock sinks. Dan blogged it. 1/2 of the room was online. The news rippled through the audience and the temp in the room chilled towards Nacchio. Esther Dyson thinks that was because of the blog. -- New tools: * Danger Hiptop * Tablet PC * Nokia camphone * Broadcast-quality satellite in a suitcase ($100K now, 10 years from now in Gulf War 8, it'll be on a phone) * Tracking the embedded journos on the web, an experiment that showed in near-real-time, where the journos were. * RSS: NYT, blogs, elsewhere. Assigns equal weight to all your sources. I think boingboing.net is important, but I want to be able to assign relative weights. -- Assembling an amateur newsroom * US SpaceCom asked for amateurs to ftp up pix of the shuttle disaster * BBC asked for demonstrators to send in photos * Self-assembling newsroom: group real-time linking to war coverage * Moblogging: Not sure on the concept, but sure that it matters, it's a big deal that people can take photos and send them straight to the Web (it will only get worse: the cameras are getting smaller). Implies that journos will get a lot of pix from people who see things that should be on the air or in print -- The covered can put out their own stories: Not just press-releases (boring, bad, astounding). WashPo did an in-depth series in early 2002 about the days after 911 and interviewed everybody who was in power, including Rumsfeld. As soon as it appeared in the paper, the Pentagon posted the full transcript of the interview. More and more sources will do this -- Companies are developing blogging policies. Ray Ozzie has one for Groove. OhMy News in Korea: an online pub that anthologizes the stuff once a week. 80-90% is written by readers. The staff edit and fact-check. Has had a tremendous influence in S. Korea, breaking the hold of the dailies, which are owned and run by people close to govt. Helped elect the new reform prez. His first interview was with OhMy. (This will work best in places with minimal libel.) Back in Iraq: a pro journo who raised money to go to Iraq to cover the war. What's the bizmodel? Dotboom: The more money you lose, the higher your valuation. There will be a collission between old and new journalism. Old journo will go away, but some of the things that it does won't: invesitgative, important projects. A civic duty. People on their own simply can't do them. -- How Hollywood and Govts want the Internet to work Like a TV. One way. With a "buy" button. That's their interactivity. Three possible scenaria for the future: 1. IP cartel combines with govts that like to keep their hands on info and win. You'll need permission to set up a blog. (I think we'll get around this, but the legal/political/financial regime is possible) 2. Total anarchy: all the media go away because of new media. Ad market will peel away the money and the big orgs collapse. eBay is by far the biggest classifieds advertiser in the US, soon the world. No one will know what's truthful or trustworthy. 3. We work together: Some big journos will collapse. But some will. Quality will be preserved at the big journo level and the wonderful upcurrent of little journos that beneifts everyone will co-exist.