Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Dan is, of course, the business and technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News and a blogger.

H says he's tired of the debate about whether blogs are journalism. It's endless and pointless. Some are and some aren't. They are their own form and they complement real-world journalism. As Doc Searls says, everyone now is a "stringer," i.e., a freelancer who occasionally feeds stories to newspapers and magazines.

Blogs are really making a difference to RW journalism, Dan says. For example, webloggers were the one who noticed Trent Lott's "nostalgia for segregation." He also points to the minute-by-minute weblog about the Space Shuttle Columbia. It was first to notice that the weather radar images seemed to show the debris path well before the real world noticed.

Traditional journalism says: "Here's the news. Take it or leave it." The conversation part has been limited to letters to the editor. Now journalism is becoming a conversation, Dan says.

Dan's basic principle: "My readers knore more than I do." He tells about the Joe Nacchio presentation at PC Forum. Nacchio was whining about running his monopoly. Dan blogged it. Buzz Bruggerman read it and sent Dan an email pointing to a page showing all the stock Nacchio was selling. So, Dan blogged it. The audience read it. The mood chilled. "Something changed in journalism that day."

Newspapers will be asking people to send in images of news events. Dan says that in the next earthquake in Japan, you'll see photos in the first 15 minutes from readers.

What about trust? Falsehoods travel faster than truths, Dan says. But, as Ken Layne said (Dan says), "We can fact-check your ass." Further, the subject of interviews can put the transcript of their interview onto their own website. The Defense Department did this when Bob Woodward was doing interviews.

Dan gets more and better info about Groove from Ray Ozzie's weblog than from their PR writings.

Big Journalism plays an important role we need to preserve. For example: investigative reporting.

Dan points to OhMyNews in S. Korea, an online newspaper that uses "citizen reporters" to supplement the staff writers. OhMyNews helped elect the new president who repaid them by giving them the first interview after he was elected. Dan also points to Nick Denton's Gizmodo, a report on gadgets. And Back in Iraq 2.0: a guy who said that if we sent him money, he'd be our reporter in Iraq.

He ends by warning us about the copyright cartel that's willing to degrade the Net in order to copy copyright "violations." "Some day, you may need permission to publish - or your page may load only after your ISP has loaded 'preferred content."

Question: How can people blog and listen at the same time?

Dan: I have a friend who calls it "continuous partial attention." We'd better get used to it.