Other than WordCamp, my favorite local geek event is BarCamp, because it brings together all sorts of people that are smarter than me to have great discussions on a variety of random subjects.
Last weekend there were a number of discussions related to journalism and “new” media, as well as the possibilities for knowledge transfer between traditional journalists and those with skills related to conversational media such as blogs and Twitter. As noted previously, Rick and I hosted a discussion on Saturday morning that focused on bloggers learning from journalists. The audio from that discussion is now available (approx 43mb, .mp3 format).
Following the first discussion, a related session led by three Columbian employees looked at the future of newspapers (timely, given that their paper had declared bankruptcy on Friday). I have a video of that session but need to figure out hosting options. John Hill (one of the Columbian folks) posted his thoughts on his blog.
We didn’t touch much on the conversation aspect of new media during the morning sessions, so some of us gathered for an afternoon talk about comments, Twitter, and the two-way nature of internet media as opposed to traditional (mostly) one-way media blasts. I posed a question, wondering if most newspaper and TV websites’ half-assed attempt at comment abilities were because the companies didn’t really care or want to hear the readers feedback and a couple of the journalists validated my hypothesis. That attitude will need to change. Tonight, @oregoniansteve linked to a piece suggesting that if newspapers aren’t going to do comments right, they shouldn’t do them at all. I wholeheartedly agree.
What’s next? Abraham Hyatt has announced Digital Journalism Camp Portland, to be held some time in August. Follow that link to find out more. The BarCamp discussions were a good start, but there is a LOT of conversation to happen in this area and I applaud Abraham for taking the next step to facilitate the learning.
On Friday, Rick Turoczy attended a City Club forum discussing the future of newspapers. There was some resulting discussion on Twitter about newspapers, journalism, and open vs. closed communication. As the news industry faces radical changes and many traditional news operations face financial peril, it is obvious that journalists need to adapt or die. I think the distinction between the work of journalists and the method of delivery needs to be recognized… journalism and newspapers (or TV) are two separate things, and the failure of the delivery mechanism does not mean that journalism itself is a failure.
While there are many folks in the media that “get” the internet, RSS, Twitter, and the like, there are many that still don’t. Fortunately there are a lot of folks in the digital world interested in helping journalists understand the new media.
Rick and I would like to lead a discussion to bring together bloggers and journalists at BarCampPortland to talk about journalism, media, and change. I think that traditional journalists can learn a few things from bloggers, and bloggers have a lot to learn about the practice of journalism. Let’s get some of the bright folks from both groups together and talk.
We need some help: while a lot of bloggers and geeks will be at BarCamp, odds are that many traditional journalists haven’t even heard of it. Any help in spreading the word amongst media folks would be much appredciated; hopefully we can have a great cross-section of folks in the discussion. BarCamp Portland is May 1-2 at CubeSpace (this discussion will be on Saturday).
Update: A few folks have asked about what time the discussion will be held. BarCamp is an unconference, meaning that the schedule and topics are set during the event by the attendees. Rick and I will target the discussion for the morning of the 2nd, between 9-noon. We can’t guarantee an exact time but should be able to narrow it down to that window. That said, if journalists are looking to get an insight into the blogger/geek/new media culture, hanging out for BarCamp (beyond the journalistm/media discussion) would be an excellent way to get a taste of that world.
