10.08.2005

i hope they're paying royalties to the Clamor folks

Continuing with our theme of interactive and alternative media, I was surprised and pleased to see this AP article about citizen reporting in the Post-Gazette this morning. It's another sign that the type of media activism we're doing and the philosophy of communication we're pushing is making an impression on people and making a difference in "the real world" beyond Crazy Lefty Land.

As an aside, one thing that struck me when I was looking for a link to the article was the difference in headlines assigned to the story by different papers. The Raleigh/Durham/C-Hill "News & Observer," to which I link, titles the story, Traditional media experiment with citizens as news producers, making the move sound quite tentative and even radical. This was presumably a headline suggested by the AP, because Canoe.ca uses a similar, if more ambiguous and frightening, hed -- Traditional media experiment with citizens. The Freepers posted the story with that headline, and added (Media adopts blogging), because blogging as a news medium (I think) still has a built-in elitism, and that's more their speed than admitting that we're talking about a wholesale change toward the democratization of communication. The Post-Gazette's headline? You, too, can be the media!

Did I mention to you that I love Pittsburgh?

(PS I think I'm going "camping" (sort of) with Emma at her folks' farm tonight. It'll be the first time I've done such a thing in two years or so, as the parents sold the cottage last year. It should be good for me.)