Digging Deeper
Chinese Entrepreneur Downplays Censorship Problem in China
When Google "launched its web search engine":http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4645596.stm in China, and admitted having to censor search results, we made a big stink about it here in the U.S. And when Microsoft admitted to "censoring its MSN Spaces blogs":http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/06/chinese_editions_of_.html in China, we made a big stink about it. And when any American technology company was found to have collaborated with the Chinese government in censoring the Internet, we made a big stink.
Freedom of speech online is an important ideal, but perhaps we are inserting our own Western societal norms on an Eastern culture that has different needs and desires. And perhaps we aren't giving enough credit to the Netizens of China to figure out how to get around the censorship of the vaunted "Great Firewall of China":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall_of_China, the state's centralized control of Internet content.
That's the thinking of Marcus Xiang (pictured above), the CEO of "PDX.cn":http://www.pdx.cn, a cell-phone blogging (or "moblogging") service based in Beijing. I met Xiang at the We Media Forum in London, where he spoke on the "Asia-focused panel":http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story1842.shtml about how people in China use blogs.
During the panel, one person in the online chat room criticized the Western media for focusing too much on Internet censorship in China, because so many Chinese people can easily get around censorship in numerous ways. For example, people on blogs can use code words for words that are banned online, or think of creative ways to describe banned topics. Plus, technically savvy folks can find ways to visit blocked sites on servers located outside of China, or they can find banned information on lesser known websites.
After the panel, I had a chance to interview Xiang to discuss his thoughts on the subject of censorship. He also talked about the obstacles to widespread moblogging in China, where more people have cell phones than have Net access -- but don't have third-generation (3G) mobile services for speedy uploading of photos and video content. The government is expected to issue 3G mobile licenses by the end of the year.
The following is an edited version of our conversation.
Mark Glaser: Tell me more about the blogging market within China.
Marcus Xiang: We have a different conception of what blogging is, because of the restrictions on blogging, and because we realize how blogging can play out in this area. There are many companies looking to develop this in other ways. If you look at the example of what BBS [bulletin board services] have done in China, we have thousands of BBS in China, and people are talking about different things and different issues and different interest groups. It's like gatherings around the web.
Now companies who are doing blogging, it's the same thing. Companies and organizations have a lot of non-profit blogging sites as well. It's not all about making money. They want to have a place to gather around and have their story told.
Glaser: From the outside, we always look at what's happening in China and say there's censorship in what they're saying. But people know how to get around censored words, using code words or slang, and there's no way to block every type of forbidden communication.
Xiang: There's no way to do that. Some issues are so covered by mainstream media outlets that it forces coverage inside China. If the BBC goes in and does a story about something happening, it damages the government's reputation.
Glaser: So it does have an effect when an outside media outlet writes about China.
Xiang: Of course, because the politicizing of everything doesn't do any good to businesses in China who are working on blogging in China. There are political blogs in China that are talking about corruption, that are talking about politics in China.
Glaser: And those get blocked?
Xiang: No, they are open. They're not blocked. As long as people are being constructive and they're telling real stories. I think this is a great tool -- blogging -- so how are you going to use it? That's the question.
When we look at foreign media, we feel like there's some kind of conspiracy, because they want to change China from the outside, and they have this Western idea of what democracy is.
Glaser: So people feel like you should be able to work out your own problems?
Xiang: Yes, we'll work things out. We have had problems like in China when SARS came, the problem of "not reporting it":http://www.cecc.gov/pages/news/prcControl_SARS.php. Now we don't have that [problem with cover-ups], because government changed the regulations and they want officials to be right on it, like when SARS happens. We have a lot of things happening in a positive direction and that happens over time. You don't get things done overnight. It takes time. Chinese people have patience, but foreign media people don't. It's something that Chinese people don't understand. We are working on other issues in China, we know [censorship is] a problem, of course, we are conscious of so many problems. And we work on them one by one, with different priorities.
Glaser: Tell me more about your company.
Xiang: We provide a platform to let people have different conversations, with a mobile blogging platform and weblogging. It's a way for people to tell stories and share stories, and they become friends. It has a social networking aspect.
We have more people doing mobile chat than blogging still, because [mobile data costs are] more expensive than talking. We have less than 100,000 mobile blogging. We do have 2 million mobile users who've come to browse and check messages and comments. We have a web interface, but we are mobile-centric, so we're a little bit different than other [blogging] programs.
Glaser: Why do you think it's slow to catch on, mobile-blogging?
Xiang: We provide the platform that enables multimedia, a combination of images, text, audio and video. For moblogging in China there are many problems. The cost is one issue, the connection speed is still slow. You have broadband for the web, but it still has a way to go on mobile.
Half of Internet connections in China now are broadband. Even in the smaller villages, they have cybercafes with broadband. For mobile, we are waiting for broadband, we don't have that yet. [Our company is] ahead of that. The other problem is the users have to get used to it, they have to learn it. It's an educational process. They have to know it.
Glaser: Is the technology a problem or are they not used to photographing their lives?
Xiang: They're not used to this way of expressing themselves. They're used to sending an image to their friends, but now they're sending it to a community where thousands, or tens of thousands or millions of people are looking at it. It takes time for people to get used to the feedback. They have to prepare themselves for that type of conversation. In the community, we have a lot of these conversations going on.
Glaser: Do people use the service to capture and share newsworthy events they see?
Xiang: We have very few newsworthy posts, but sometimes it happens accidentally when they are [at the scene of news]. Blogging we see as a media for the few. If you compare the number of blogs for conversation and the number of blogs for journalism and newsworthy ones, there is no comparison. Blogging is more for conversation and social interacting than for news. I think that alone will have a big impact on society, and help with the democratic process because they will have had this to express themselves. This is very important.
Just conversing is important, because later on, when the law changes, you'll be used to it, used to talking about different things. So you should have this user behavior going on. It's good. I see things very positively being a local person living in China. We see all these positive improvements in our lives. I live in Beijing. We're doing well economically and culturally.
A lot of things are happening in a positive way, and there will be political reform, just like the government promised. They will do it, but it's just about the timing. When they're comfortable they will do it.
Glaser: What kind of political reform do you see happening?
Xiang: I don't know. But it will happen. Now journalists are blogging, politicians are blogging in China. That should be noted. Like in our Congress, people in Congress are blogging. And artists are blogging, singers are blogging. These get a big audience, they are big media themselves. We have millions of page views for just one blogger, so they are very powerful. And they discuss a lot of social issues as well.
Glaser: And they have a following where they can talk directly to their fans without having to go through the media?
Xiang: That's right. I think it's quite positive, because we have such exponential growth of bloggers, and that's the proof. The government has a pretty positive view of blogging. And they want that transparency...
Glaser: But they also have the Great Firewall and surveillance set up too.
Xiang: For a society like China, we are such a diverse society, we have people who are very rich and very poor, and we are over 1 billion people. And it can be very troubling for the government and for us if there's some type of instability going on. We are enjoying the stability and the growth, and we hope political reform can come alongside stability. We don't want change like the Soviet Union, where they had shock therapy and they failed. That doesn't work very well.
When Google "launched its web search engine":http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4645596.stm in China, and admitted having to censor search results, we made a big stink about it here in the U.S. And when Microsoft admitted to "censoring its MSN Spaces blogs":http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/06/chinese_editions_of_.html in China, we made a big stink about it. And when any...continued...
Digging Deeper
Reuters Looks to Provide 'Spine of Truth' to Blogosphere
In the brave new world of citizen media -- with bloggers, podcasters and video journalists doing it themselves -- what role does the musty old wire service play? An important one, if it can stay relevant, honest and transparent. Because if you eliminate the tell-it-like-it-is wire stories from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France Presse, it's very difficult to have a starting point for all the opinions and arguments raging online.
While the Associated Press doesn't maintain a central hub for its journalism, "Reuters":http://www.reuters.com is running three portals for its writing, photos and video -- one for North America, one for the U.K. (where it is headquartered) and one for Japan. Reuters is certainly Old Media, having been founded in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter, known for using carrier pigeons to fly stock quotes between cities.
But Reuters can shape-shift with the times because it runs no newspapers, TV or radio stations. While Reuters is known for its old business computer terminals (like the "Videomaster":http://about.reuters.com/pressoffice/history/technology.asp), it doesn't have the infrastructure of printing presses and delivery trucks like newspapers do, nor a complex affiliate system of TV or radio stations.
Still, Reuters has not fully exploited its advantage in shape-shifting, and the sprawling news wire has fallen behind rivals who have been quicker to use the interactivity of the web to their advantage. While news sites such as MSNBC and the BBC have been accepting photos and videos shot by their audience, Reuters still has a "user-generated photo program":http://labs.reuters.com/yourphotos/ bottled up in its "Labs":http://labs.reuters.com/, a test site for innovative projects. By now, all the projects in Reuters Labs should be integral parts of its online presence -- podcasts, a financial glossary wiki, the video affiliate network (which lets any site run Reuters video for free).
And its "news blogs":http://blogs.reuters.com/ have yet to find their place in the noisy blogosphere, because they are built around events and don't have consistent voices. One exception is the "Oddly Enough blog":http://blogs.reuters.com/category/themes/oddly-enough/, a collection of strange-but-true stories and photos that recently included a Chinese stuntman who squirted "milk out of his eye":http://blogs.reuters.com/2006/05/06/past-your-eyes-milk/.
But Reuters oozes with potential for a makeover. Here's a service with 2,300 editorial staff in 130 countries that produces 600 photos per day, and in 2005 filed more than 2.7 million news items in 18 different languages. You just want to grab hold of it, try to comprehend it all, and make it relevant for each curious reader who could interact with it in some way to create a nouveau two-way, collaborative wire service of the future. Right now, the Reuters portals offer precious little in the way of customizing my experience or letting me interact in some way with the media there.
But that's not my concern, really -- it's the job of "Dean Wright":http://www.mediacenter.org/content/6569.cfm (pictured here), senior vice president and managing editor for Reuters Consumer Services, who manages those three web portals for Reuters. I had spoken to Wright before, when he was editor in chief at MSNBC.com, and had the chance to talk to him in person at the We Media Forum last week.
h2. Alliance with Global Voices
The "big news":http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/04/14/announcing-our-alliance-with-reuters/ for Reuters was a partnership with "Global Voices Online":http://www.globalvoicesonline.org, a group blog that sums up blog conversations around the world. Wright told me more about how Reuters had invested money in Global Voices, and how the wire service saw itself as providing a "spine of the truth" for the world of blogs.
"We provided money to [Global Voices] to hire a managing editor and improve their infrastructure," Wright said. "We've actually used them on our coverage of Hu Jintao's visit to the U.S. We had "a page":http://today.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage.aspx?type=china&src=cms with Reuters text and video, and Reuters pictures, plus we had an RSS feed from Global Voices with some of the bloggers talking about the visit.
"My view is that Reuters can really help -- I don't know if 'help' is the right word, I don't want to be condescending here. But Reuters can play an important role in the blogging world by essentially doing what it does best. Doing straight reporting, and doing what I call the 'spine of the truth' around which you can have these global conversations. And I think the global conversations are made better and more relevant by having this spine of truth. It's much better that we're there than we ignore it. And it exposes Reuters content to a wider audience of people too."
The alliance with Global Voices is a nice start for Reuters, but most of its moves into new media have been baby steps -- and they're not played up very much for the average visitor to the Reuters websites. I also asked Wright more about Reuters' nascent efforts in blogging. He told me the reporters were trying to keep their opinions out of the blogs -- something that runs counter to the strength of blogs, in my opinion.
"So far we've done [blogging] with journalists who are really experts in their field," Wright said. "In their blogs it gives them an opportunity to write what they know without injecting their opinions in there. I see it as solid reporting, and you won't find in our blogs what our reporters think. You'll see what a reporter sees, and hear what a reporter thinks to be true. And we're able to do it fairly quickly in the editorial process, too...All our blogs are edited, and our comments are all moderated. We feel we have to do that."
For a big news organization like Reuters or the New York Times or CBS News, there's a push and pull between trying to loosen up the editorial process to embrace the blogging ethos and the fear that the high standards at that news source will suffer as a result. Wright also told me he would like to create a news portal in China, but is waiting to make a partnership with the right Chinese portal site.
"I think China has huge potential for Reuters' business news, because there's a growing entrepreneurial class in China that's demanding fast business news to make decisions," he said. "Reuters has been in China for a number of years. It reports on China for the rest of the world, and it reports in China. It's been very clear that what we report in China is financial news. Everyone knows about the restrictions in China, and that's what we're living with there. Any site we do in China would be a business-oriented site.
"Probably the biggest obstacle in China is dealing with bureaucracy and finding the right partners. There are a number of very large websites in China with huge traffic, and we want to find a good one to partner with."
But even as Reuters thinks about expanding geographically, it has to consider how it can remake its current sites to bring out the strong video and photographic journalism the service produces -- and create multimedia presentations that will wow people. Wright says one big goal for him is to make the sites more visual, and tell stories better by weaving together video, pictures, text and interactivity. I asked him whether he had more trouble getting such an effort off the ground at Reuters vs. his experience at MSNBC.
"It's not that there are walls that need to be broken down at Reuters, but it's just that the walls surround such a large area that there's so much territory to cover," Wright said. "But that's why I like it, because it's such great material to work with, and I have so much support from my bosses. I think it's in the great tradition of Reuters to do things in innovative ways. Reuters once used carrier pigeons to deliver stock quotes, used rowboats to deliver materials. It's an evolution. I like to say I work for the only Victorian Internet news company, and like the Victorians, a lot of progress has been made."
What do you think about how Reuters fits into the new media landscape? Does the blogosphere need a "spine of truth," and what role can a wire service play in the swirl of media options? If you could share your own idea of what Reuters should do online, what would you tell them?
In the brave new world of citizen media -- with bloggers, podcasters and video journalists doing it themselves -- what role does the musty old wire service play? An important one, if it can stay relevant, honest and transparent. Because if you eliminate the tell-it-like-it-is wire stories from the...continued...
Live from London
We Media's World Tour from Reuters
LONDON -- First, the good news. I can report that the halls of the "We Media":http://www.mediacenterblog.org/events/06/wemedialondon/program/ conference were buzzing today with people slagging the overproduced Big Media lovefest at the BBC yesterday, and heaping praise on the second day's global focus and more intimate setting at Reuters' headquarters in Canary Wharf on the east side of London.
Today, the conference brought in more outside voices -- outside the mainstream media, that is. We had live satellite feeds bringing in an entrepreneur in China (pictured above), a blogger in Kenya and a journalist from Baghdad (who told us about Air Force actions taking place overhead!). Thankfully, we heard more than just about blogging, with a lot of talk about the rise of cell phone text-messaging spreading alternative news in Asia, the Middle East and in Africa. There was talk of social networking in South Africa, understanding between "Israeli and Arab bloggers":http://inlebanon.blogspot.com/2006/04/comments-on-israellebanon-and-israeli.html, and the booming mobile phone market in China.
I particularly enjoyed the panels focused on South Asia (largely India) and Africa. During the South Asia panel, moderated deftly by Rebecca MacKinnon (pictured here), Neha Viswanathan, an editor for "Global Voices":http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/, pointed out how citizen journalism varies from country to country in the area.
"Depending on the situation in each country -- with their media and government -- the citizen media is different depending on political circumstances," she said. "In India, there is freedom of expression but only for about 20% of the population -- the rest have no representation in the media or access to new media...In Pakistan the government blocked Blogspot blogs, but then opened them up again.
"And in Nepal, the mainstream media didn't fail the people, it just had no teeth [because of government censorship]. Journalists there were blogging to tell the story of the April revolution. New media didn't rise up because [mainstream] media failed there."
And the panel on African media was illuminating in smashing some stereotypes about Africa as one monolithic place, with a show of independent, do-it-yourself spirit that has pervaded real grassroots media. On live satellite from Kenya was Ory Okolloh (pictured here), a Harvard grad who writes the "Kenya Pundit":http://www.kenyanpundit.com/ blog and helped work on the "Global Voices":http://www.globalvoicesonline.com group blog effort.
"When I got involved in Global Voices, our concern at first was that our stories weren't captured well by the mainstream media or African media," she said. "Instead of complaining about it, I challenge people to tell your stories. If you think the New York Times isn't covering your story, get it out there yourself. We have challenges with access, but we're growing."
And later, someone from an online forum asked the panel a typical question about Africa: "How can we justify diverting funds to Internet connectivity if it means losing funds for clean water and other needs?"
Okolloh responded from Kenya with fire.
"I don't think they are mutually exclusive goals," she said. "No one is saying move money from AIDS research so we can have more Net access. I think both can be done at the same time. We have to push our leaders to spend the money the right way. We're not a poor country. It's up to us to get our leaders to spend money. To say that we can't spend money on Net access is crap. I get tired of hearing these arguments. We can't wait to solve every disease before our kids are on the Internet."
h2. Some Old (Media) Problems Resurface
If only the inclusiveness on these panels had been spread out to the other panels that were awash in old-think Old Media types. The Middle East panel, for instance, focused almost exclusively on the satellite TV revolution spawned by Al Jazeera in the Arab world. And it's true that it has played a huge role in the opening up of previously closed government-controlled media systems. But it took till almost the very end until people in the audience started mentioning blogs in Israel, in Egypt and in Iran -- and none of the panelists had opinions on this subject.
Afterwards, Tarek Atia, who runs various blogs and news aggregators out of Cairo, including "CairoLive.com":http://www.cairolive.com, told me that the panel got it all backward. "They should have discussed Al Jazeera and the TV networks for the first 10 minutes, and then moved into the blog explosion in all these countries and how they are opening up political discussions online. But instead, they spent 30 minutes talking about TV and barely got to blogs at the end."
Journalist/blogger Lisa Goldman, who lives in Israel, tried to bring up the difference of news facts reported by Al Jazeera in English and Arabic, but she was largely ignored by panelists in a brush-off. She was upset and "vented about her experience":http://ontheface.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/5/4/1932756.html on her On The Face blog, where she wondered how a Middle East panel could lack Jews and Persians.
One complaint from the audience at one point later in the proceedings summed up some of my frustrations hearing so many media executives talk about their companies and their accomplishments without discussing collaboration with their audience -- the whole point of "We Media."
"I have been here for two days and I haven't heard the word 'we' much," she said.
The Media Center, the think tank putting on the conference, then allowed people to share their ideas and action items for the future, to try to solidify something beyond just talk -- a nice goal.
Consultant/blogger Suw Charman again had some pointed words of wisdom: "The single most important action you can take is start listening to bloggers, people who are proficient with blogs, wikis, with photojournalism -- the people who are starting these projects, and the way they work and the way they fail and the interactions underlying the technology."
I felt like the We Media conference was a mixed bag. I met some very smart people doing wonderful projects that I'll detail in future posts on MediaShift. And there were some bright spots in the program. But it's time to move beyond the us vs. them mentality between Big Media news organizations and bloggers, podcasters and citizen media folks doing grassroots work. Both have their strengths and limitations and there is enough cross-pollinization (bloggers who are journalists, journalists who do podcasts, etc.) that the generalizations are losing their meaning.
We Media means we are all media, so we might as well try to move forward together rather than toss grenades in chat rooms, blogs and on stage. If The Media Center wants a true conversation to take place at their next show in Miami next February, it would behoove them to fill the stage with big wigs, small wigs and everyone in between -- and lower the stage so everyone can feel comfortable contributing.
What do you think? If you attended the show, share your thoughts below in the comments. If you didn't attend, tell us what you think "we media" means and what old-line news organizations can do to foster more conversation and less lecturing.
LONDON -- First, the good news. I can report that the halls of the "We Media":http://www.mediacenterblog.org/events/06/wemedialondon/program/ conference were buzzing today with people slagging the overproduced Big Media lovefest at the BBC yesterday, and heaping praise on the second day's global focus and more intimate setting at Reuters' headquarters in...continued...
Live from London
We Media, Me Too Media and Them Media
LONDON -- It's exciting to be in a room -- well, actually a glitzy BBC TV studio -- with a group of top media executives, consultants, think-tankers and gadflys for a day of discussion about "We Media":http://www.mediacenterblog.org/events/06/wemedialondon/home/ or citizen journalism.
Much of the discussion was about how Big Media is embracing the new democratization of media online with citizen-shot photos and video, weblogs and the inclusion of diverse voices. But ironically perhaps, the idea for the conference to be a global conversation -- or at the least, a conversation in the room -- was much more difficult because of the setting and setup.
Rumor has it there were 200 BBC staffers behind the scenes putting on this TV show of a conference at the BBC television headquarters in White City on the west side of London. Attendees were spread out at tables around the room, and panelists were up on stage wearing clip-on microphones. There were even commercial breaks where sponsors were interviewed from the "trade show exhibits" in the back of the studio.
While there was plenty of time for the audience to jump into the conversation happening on-stage, it was a bit disconcerting to have a TV camera crew and stage lights shone onto you while throwing out your question or comment.
One of the BBC presenters (a.k.a. anchormen), Nik Gowing, was especially abrasive to people stepping into the conversation. For example, I got up at one point and asked this question to a "Leaders Panel" of mainstream media mucky-mucks: "The great thing about we media or citizen media is that anyone can start a blog or podcast and do journalism -- it's a grassroots thing. People in the blogosphere see this conference as Big Media folks trying to grab onto a trend and show that they 'get it' and are just trying to co-opt what's going on by launching blogs and such. How do you respond to that?"
Gowing turned to the panel and said, "Exploitation -- how do you respond?" The responses were pretty tepid, not surprisingly.
Consultant "Suw Charman":http://suw.org.uk/ was one of many in the room who were frustrated by the split personality or disconnect happening here. "There are really two conversations going on, one up on the stage and one out here, and they aren't listening to each other, really." As for the exploitation angle, Charman dubbed the event "Me Too Media," for the way the mainstream media was trying to show they were hip to the trend without actually bringing many independent people on stage who are practicing citizen media.
You can count on bloggers to excoriate this dynamic, and they did it in spades. Just one example came from Jack P. Toerson, who didn't attend the conference but "slammed the idea":http://www.twonilblankblank.com/blog/2006/05/04/we-media-digital-assassination/ of "Digital Assassins," where the We Media conference brought in "real people" who were shutting off old media for new media in their lives. These folks spread out at each of our tables, and we questioned them as if we were in a psych lab. As contrived as this idea was, I have to admit this was the first time I really did have a group conversation at the conference because our table got to talk privately for awhile.
"There are some amazing things coming out of blogging," Toerson wrote on his blog critique. "Reports from war zones, personal stories, and information that never would have reached a wide audience. But these, for me at least, are symptoms of just how badly the old media has failed. Necessity is the mother of all invention and people that have been ignored by the old media have taken matters into their own hands."
Other folks at the conference (names deleted) were astonished that there was so little talk about "Web 2.0":http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/04/jargon_watchwhat_is_web_20_and.html technology such as social networking, photo-sharing and online video -- and so much emphasis on old arguments such as journalism vs. blogging. One high-profile consultant on the scene said, "This day was so 2005. If this was taking place in the U.S., they would have been trashed."
h2. On the Plus Side...
But at tech conferences, blog sniping -- and all other on-site sniping -- is like shooting fish in a barrel. It's a nice sport and so easy. But credit is also due to the conference organizers for pulling this whole thing off, and at least getting the idea of citizen journalism out into the world, largely with the huge help of the BBC, which was running TV story after story on the "trust-in-media survey":http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbcreut.html, flawed as it might have been.
In the middle of each panel discussion, the moderator would cut away to "Brian Reich":http://www.mediacenter.org/content/6921.cfm, who was monitoring what people were talking about online in the We Media chat room and on other blogs. Reich mentioned at various points that people online were calling panelists "elitist" and "smug," and while the panelists and moderators tried to laugh it off, the points were made. Again, it had a contrived feeling to it, similar to what you see on CNN and their blog reports, but it was at least a nod to the real world outside that was not always looking at the conference kindly.
Also on the good foot, "The Media Center":http://www.mediacenter.org/ think tank that's putting on the conference paid 13 "We Media Fellows" to come to the conference from various places around the world and "live-blog":http://mediacenterblog.org/ the conference's sessions and speeches. It would have been nice to have some of these folks up on stage, but at least they're here.
I have a lot of hope for the second day of the conference on Thursday, which will take place at the new Reuters HQ in Canary Wharf with a bit less glitz, and perhaps a more unified conversation. The lineup includes panels on how citizen media is changing culture in hotspots around the world, from Asia to the Middle East. Stay tuned for more reports then...
UPDATE: One thing I forgot to mention about the first day's affairs. At one point, Brian Reich mentioned someone in the chat room critiquing the panel. The moderator then asked for the person to stand up and tell the panel directly what was wrong and what her complaint was. Eventually she stood up sheepishly and seemed to soft-pedal her criticism. I hadn't seen this type of "outing" someone doing online chat critiques and making them stand up to talk about it in the room.
Whether it was a good or bad thing is unclear. I would guess it might chill the online complaints somewhat, but it would also bring out some counterviews to a panel where everyone was basically congratulating themselves. What do you think about that type of outing someone's online chatter?
Photo by Annabel Blair -- BBC Global News
LONDON -- It's exciting to be in a room -- well, actually a glitzy BBC TV studio -- with a group of top media executives, consultants, think-tankers and gadflys for a day of discussion about "We Media":http://www.mediacenterblog.org/events/06/wemedialondon/home/ or citizen journalism. Much of the discussion was about how Big Media...continued...
Live from London
Which Media Do You Trust?
LONDON -- I am your on-the-scene correspondent this week from London, where I am currently in a BBC TV studio listening to various people discuss citizen journalism at the "We Media Forum":http://www.mediacenterblog.org/events/06/wemedialondon/program. The conference bills itself thusly: "No ordinary conference, We Media is about how we create a better-informed society by collaborating with one another."
The big news early on from the conference came from a "10-nation survey":http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/bbcreut.html by GlobeScan about how people trust various types of media. Here are some top-line findings from the survey of 10,000+ people in the U.S., U.K., Brazil, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia:
* Overall, 61% of people trust media, while only 52% trust governments. In the U.S., 67% trust government while 59% trust media; and in the U.K., 51% trust government while 47% trust media.
* Of news sources, national TV was the most trusted at 82%, followed by national/regional newspapers (75%), local newspapers (69%), public radio (67%), satellite TV (56%) and blogs came up last with 25% trusting them.
* On the question of what was the most "important" news source, people chose TV most (56%), followed by newspapers (21%), Internet (9%) and radio (9%).
* 28% of people surveyed said they abandoned a news source in the past year because they didn't trust the content.
After the data was officially released, there was a panel discussion on the topic of trust, and much talk about how media outlets earn (and lose) trust. But one question I had was about the people who were surveyed: What media do they actually see and use regularly?
My gut feeling is that people were judging types of media that they trust not from having used those media, but just from their perception of them. Especially with blogs, where 25% said they trusted blogs, 23% said they didn't trust them, and more than half didn't even have an opinion about them. So I have to wonder how valuable a survey about trust is when people are giving their view on trusting sources they've never or rarely seen.
Moreover, people come up with their perceptions on blogs from coverage in the mainstream media -- which usually simplifies everything to "blogs are changing the world" or "blogs have none of the great fact-checking of mainstream media, so they have no credibility."
While those points might be true, the trustworthiness of blogs depends on each blog, who is writing it and how much trust the blogger has built with its audience. So whether blogs (or TV or newspapers...) are trustworthy depends on many factors.
On the panel, David Schlesinger of Reuters said, "The medium isn't the message; the message is the message."
In other words, people decide on what they trust on a case-by-case basis, so one particular story or blog post might be trusted and another might be tossed aside. The worst thing about the survey is that it overgeneralizes each type of media. People might say, "I don't trust TV news" or "I don't trust blogs," but what they really mean is "I don't trust that story from CNN" or "I don't trust a particular blogger because I saw some dodgy material."
I talked to Gary Kebbel (pictured) here at the conference, who's the journalism initiatives programs officer for the "John S. and James L. Knight Foundation":http://www.knightfdn.org/default.asp. Kebbel and I discussed some of the weaknesses of the survey and its generalization of the way people trust entire platforms of news.
"Trust is situational," Kebbel said. "Technology is a tool, and you can't remove it from its social context as they are doing in this survey. When people think about blogs, they see them as a big cacophony, so it's not surprising that they would say they don't trust them."
Kebbel and Knight will be hosting the next We Media conference next February in Miami Beach. Hopefully by then, the Media Center will have a new survey that delves down below the generalizations of trust in media.
Do you find yourself trusting or not trusting entire media platforms, and how do you reach those decisions? Or is it more of a case-by-case situation? Share your thoughts in comments below.
Also, if you'd like me to pursue a particular story or person here at the We Media Forum, please drop me a note via the "Feedback Form":http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/info/feedback.html or through the comments below.
Here's actor/activist Richard Dreyfuss asking a question at the We Media conference. You can see more photos from the We Media Forum via Flickr "here":http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/wemedia/.
UPDATE: Later in the day, social software consultant Suw Charman stood up and made similar complaints about the survey. "There are 50 million blogs," Charman said. "You can't say if you trust blogs in a blanket way. There are individual bloggers who I trust, and I get to know what they do more than I know journalists. The idea of trust in blogs vs. trust in media is daft."
LONDON -- I am your on-the-scene correspondent this week from London, where I am currently in a BBC TV studio listening to various people discuss citizen journalism at the "We Media Forum":http://www.mediacenterblog.org/events/06/wemedialondon/program. The conference bills itself thusly: "No ordinary conference, We Media is about how we create a better-informed...continued...
