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Weblog:   The Open Source Paradigm Shift - What I Really Said
Subject:   reportage
Date:   2003-07-10 23:14:16
From:   anonymous2
It's interesting that you observed that the "regular press" covered your comments more accurately than the bloggers. After all, one of the big selling points made all along by Dave Winer and others was that blogging is a way to get out from under the mostly dead weight of the commercial media.


But in the end, I don't think it's about one versus the other -- it's about having a choice, or even better, about the *reality* of different perspectives, whether it is the professionally framed version of broadcast, print or electronic media, or the unfiltered observer posting to her or his own web site. That puts more power in the hands of the reader, while adding to the value of the effort made by the reporter or observer.


That's a pretty good place to be going.


Fred Heutte
Portland, Oregon


PS And speaking of places to be going, welcome to Portland (at last), and we hope you'll return again. Although I'd give some thought to locations other than the Marriott, which is a bit cramped in many of the meeting rooms. Our new convention center addition would be an excellent location for a future Open Source confab.
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Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.

  • Tim O'Reilly photo reportage
    2003-07-11 09:14:47  Tim O'Reilly | O'Reilly AuthorO'Reilly Blogger [View]

    I agree that both have a place. After all, it's in a blog that I was able to point to a better account of my ideas.


    And note that Robert MacMillan's piece was an interview, not just reportage. It's far more common that a reporter gets only a few sentences of an interview into an article, and a blog lets you give the whole story. See for example my blog on Apple as Innovator, which started out as an email interview for the Baltimore Sun, but which I published as a blog after being disappointed with how little of the interview made it into the story. But note also that the Sun story was a good story -- my complaint had nothing to do with quality but only with the limits of word count. So blogging and professional reportage are great complements.

  • reportage
    2003-07-11 08:52:21  Derek Vadala | O'Reilly Author [View]

    I'm not sure I agree that interviews count as "dead weight" reporting in the same way that traditional news articles do. Of course, some interviews are edited to disort the intent of the interviewee, but there's nothing stopping a blogger from using that tactic as well.

    You'll have to ask Dave Winer what he thinks.

    Derek Vadala
  • reportage
    2003-07-11 06:21:41  anonymous2 [View]

    As a blogger and reader of regular news outlets I find one as bad or bad as the other depending on -who- is doing the reporting.

    If I had been able to find a USB mic for my ibook I'd have been audioblogging Tim's talk as well. What can do a better job of reporting the fact than an pure record of the facts themselves. All hail "recording" devices other than the human brain.
    • reportage
      2003-07-11 06:26:35  anonymous2 [View]

      "I find one as bad or bad as"

      I meant to write "as bad or good as the other".
Showing messages 1 through 4 of 4.

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