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May 2005
U.K. sites lead Webby Awards
2005-05-03By Robert Niles: Sites from the United Kingdom captured the top two awards for news sites in the Ninth Annual Webby Awards, announced Tuesday morning. BBC News was named the top news website online, while The Guardian claimed the prize as top newspaper website. Overall, Webby Awards were announced in more than 60 categories.
D.C.-area grassroots journalism site debuts
2005-05-03
By Robert Niles:
Grassroots journalism expands in the Washington, D.C. area with the arrival of Backfence.com, a reader-written news site managed by Mark Potts, late of the Washington Post, and Susan DeFife, formerly of Womenconnect.com. The site offers portals for two Northern Virginia D.C. suburbs, with the promise of more to come.
NPR ombudsman slams blogs over ethics
2005-05-04By Robert Niles: National Public Radio ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin ranted against the blogosphere this week, dubbing it "an amoral place with few rules." Dvorkin was reacting to several blogs' publishing a Pentagon report that had been released in PDF format, then published on NPR.org.
The Pentagon had redacted information within the report it considered sensitive, but as many techies know, information redacted within a PDF often can be revealed, using relatively simple tricks. NPR's reporters missed the screw-up, but the bloggers did not. (NPR removed the document from its site once the flaw was exposed.)
Dvorkin piles on by bringing up Carnegie Corporation survey that reported younger people are turning more to the Internet than to offline media for news, and then by blasting blogs for conflating reporting with opinion.
Reporting the Pentagon gaffe had nothing to do with opinion. It provided another example of how aggressive readers can use the Web to report stories that reporters with offline news organizations sometimes miss. Perhaps that, and not a desire for humor or "ironic detachment," is why so many readers are finding a blogs a valuable part of their news reading.
British politics establish campaign presence on the Web
2005-05-05By Diana Day: Via washingtonpost.com: Many political pundits maintain that an election is won by good old fashioned pressing the flesh, distributing paper flyers and campaigning door-to-door. Skeptics aside, the Labor Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats – the three main parties in Great Britain’s upcoming election -- have all established an Internet campaign presence. Their sites include a variety of Web elements, including multimedia and campaign diaries. The campaigns also send text messages via e-mail and mobile phones. The Liberal Democrats are also using blogs and podcasting.
Click through to the third page of the article, where there are great links to British election sites, including poll updates, news, profiles, blogs and games – like the Times of London game "Mandela or Mussolini," which allows you to see where you fall on the political spectrum.
Gore to receive lifetime achievement award for support of early Internet
2005-05-05By Diana Day: Via washingtonpost.com: Organizers of the Webby Awards will give Al Gore an award for lifetime achievement at a ceremony in New York on June 6. The awards’ founder Tiffany Shlain said the award is partly to “set the record straight” about Gore’s contributions to the development of the Internet. Gore has been widely lampooned for saying in a CNN interview that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet."
While in Congress, Gore supported early Internet initiatives, and while he was vice president, he helped bring the term “information superhighway” into common parlance.
Community journalism interests Craigslist founder
2005-05-06By Sarah Colombo: From Yahoo News via AP: The community journalism movement may soon be joined by Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, who said he's been brainstorming with Dan Gillmor and Jeff Jarvis about an effective way to contribute to the model.
Newmark also told reporters and editors at an AP bureau that he believes newspaper circulation numbers are dwindling because reporters quote political and business sources who are blatantly lying. He said hopes to foster a group of "talented amateurs" to become credible, investigative reporters, and that he’d opt for an "open source" model that would challenge the mainstream media.
Newmark, whose 10-year-old community site now draws 8 million unique visitors monthly, has certainly earned the authority to weigh in on effective ways to increase readership. Aside from charging advertising fees to discourage postings from swindling landlords and dishonest New York apartment brokers, Newmark and his board members aren’t likely to be considering a public sell-out or other ways to exploit revenue sources.
Craigslist is often held responsible for regional papers' loss of advertising revenue, but Newmark said he’s not interested in "stealing" readers away from traditional media.
"People are looking for attitude and guts in reporting — not full-on gonzo journalism, but hey, tell us what you think," he said.
OJR opens news blog to readers' posts
2005-05-09By Robert Niles: Starting today, OJR readers are invited to submit entries to the OJR news blog.
This is a great way for online journalists and publishers to let others know about a new project, website or issue. Or to bring up a news article elsewhere online that you'd like to see OJR readers discuss.
The details? Readers must register with OJR to post, and OJR's student editors will review submissions before posting them live to the site.
The submission page for new blog entries is here. Thanks.
LA Times abandons paid content model
2005-05-10By Robert Niles: The Los Angeles Times debuted its redesigned latimes.com this morning. The newspaper website also reopened free access to its CalendarLive entertainment site.
The Times had restricted access to CalendarLive to seven-day subscribers of the paper, as well as a handful of online-only subscribers. The move was designed to provide seven-day subscribers an additional premium, in an attempt to reduce "churn." [Full disclosure: I was on the staff of CalendarLive when Times management decided to restrict access.]
However, Times circulation continues to fall (as it does at most U.S. newspapers) and having CalendarLive behind a subscription wall sharply reduced the site's traffic.
Steve Yelvington suggested this morning at Poynter.org that paid content is dead. It certainly is for general consumer arts and entertainment coverage. Newspaper chains blew a golden opportunity a decade ago when they failed to organize topic-driven national niche sites, using the "name brand" appeal of their critics. Instead, they left the market open for reader-driven niche entertainment sites, which now collectively draw millions of readers that once looked to their local newspaper for arts and entertainment coverage. Newspapers which throw that content behind a subscription wall only accelerate that process.
[Corrected from the original to rephrase the summary of Yelvington's piece. Thanks to Jon Garfunkel for the catch.]
Criticized Google Toolbar now out of Beta
2005-05-13By Robert Niles: Dave Winer reports that Google's Toolbar is now officially out of beta, and that the release version includes the oft-maligned AutoLink feature. When a toolbar user clicks the AutoLink button, the toolbar modifies the content of the Web page displayed to hyperlink street addresses to Google's mapping feature, tracking numbers to delivery status pages, Vehicle Identification Numbers to vehicle history services and ISBNs to Amazon.com pages. Winer, an early critic of the feature, called it a "slippery slope," and said he expects Google to release more content-modifying technology soon.
Google officials have defended the feature as user-initiated and spoofed critics of AutoLink in an April Fool's Day gag.
Readers ask the questions on Philly grassroots site
2005-05-13By Robert Niles: Dan Gillmor notes another example of a grassroots journalism site doing original reporting. He writes that Philly Future is asking its readers to submit suggestions for questions to ask the city's chief information officer, who has agreed to an interview with the site. The tech discussion board Slashdot was one of the first sites to use this approach, soliciting readers to come up with questions for interview guests.
Interviews from Catalyst Awards media panel online
2005-05-15By Peter Clayton: Landed.fm this week features interviews with Carol Hymowitz, (Wall Street Journal) - Keith Hammonds (Fast Company) and Valerie Morris, (CNN Business News). The focus is on how the media has and will continue to shape public opinion about women in the workforce - especially women in high-profile senior management. Also discussed are work/life balance, careers in the media, globalization, and China. These media professionals participated in the Catalyst Awards Conference held in New York last month.
The interviews are steamed in Mp3 and Windows Media, as well as podcast. The site uses a blog architecture, and readers are free to post comments on the interviews.
Gillmor launches grassroots journalism project
2005-05-16By Robert Niles: Former San Jose Mercury News columnist and blog pioneer Dan Gillmor has launched his much-anticipated grassroots journalism project, Bayosphere. On the new site, "we will reflect -- and reflect on -- the news, needs and ideas of the San Francisco Bay Area and especially the technology sphere that is the prime economic driver of the area," Gillmor writes.
Gillmor has also moved his popular personal blog to the site, where the new URL is http://bayosphere.com/blog/dangillmor.
Citizen Photojournalism Awards offers prizes
2005-05-16By Robert Niles: Another grassroots journalism site, NowPublic.com, is offering weekly $100 prizes for the best photos submitted to its site. NowPublic.com is inviting readers to submit newsworthy photos to the site in competition for both the weekly awards and a $500 grand prize, to be announced on June 17. Citizen photojournalists must own the rights to the images they submit.
Toronto Star debuts new media blog, podcast
2005-05-16By Diana Day: The Toronto Star has launched a media blog and a podcast. The media blog, “aimed at readers who want to make sense of a rapidly expanding world of information,” is written by the Star’s media columnist Antonia Zerbisias. The Star claims to be the first major newspaper in Canada to launch a podcast.
The saga of paid Web content: One paper steps back, another plunges in
2005-05-16By Diana Day: Via paidcontent.org: Just as the Los Angeles Times brings CalendarLive from behind a pay wall, The New York Times announces a September launch for TimesSelect, an online for-pay service that will wall off what paidContent.org says are "some of the paper's most popular staffers and articles." Home subscribers will receive access automatically, but everyone else will pay $49.95 a year for access to exclusive multimedia, some news -- some of it posted to the Web before it hits print -- and certain Op-Ed columnists. Among other features, the package will include archive access.
Survey reveals big differences in public, press attitudes about media
2005-05-17By Diana Day: Via Editor & Publisher: The Department of Public Policy at the University of Connecticut released a survey Monday highlighting differences of opinion between the public and the press regarding media issues. Editor and Publisher said the biggest gap was between 8 in 10 journalists who cop to reading blogs versus less than 1 in 10 of the public who say they do.
Three-quarters of surveyed news professionals said that bloggers aren't "real journalists" because they don't answer to "commonly held ethical standards." But, 85 percent of the press said bloggers should be protected by the First Amendment.
Finally, 61 percent of the press said that the Internet has improved journalism.
[The same organization released a survey earlier this year revealing that many young Americans think the press should have government approval before publishing stories. See related OJR news blog entry.]
Bloggers, journos huff and puff over expected Paltrow debut on Huffington blog
2005-05-17By Diana Day: Via washingtonpost.com: Robert MacMillan offers a rundown and analysis of media slams against Gwyneth Paltrow for her promised blogging appearance on huffingtonpost.com, Arianna Huffington's newly launched news and views site that boasts a huge array of celebrities. [See related OJR article and Q&A with Huffington.] Jim Romenesko linked Monday to a CNN transcript of Huffington explaining why she has celebrities on her blog.
Federal Elections Commission invites public input in debate over regulation of political blogs
2005-05-18By Diana Day: Via MSNBC.com: The U.S. Federal Elections Commission has invited public comment as it prepares to rule on whether to regulate political blogs, particularly when it comes to how blogs fit into campaign finance law. A federal court ruled last year that omitting the Internet from regulations could undercut the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act. Democratic and Republican bloggers alike joined forces in March at the Washington, D.C. Politics Online Conference to let the FEC know their opinion: blogs should be exempted from regulation like other forms of media so as not to infringe upon their right to free speech. The FEC will hold a public hearing in June and will rule sometime in the summer.
Making news bidirectional: HoustonChronicle.com upgrades several blogs to Movable Type
2005-05-18By Diana Day: Via HoustonChronicle.com: Technology columnist Dwight Silverman explains that the increased interactivity from upgrading several of HoustonChronicle.com's blogs to Movable Type "[makes] news into a conversation." Using the software's ability to publish reader comments and to track what other Internet sites have linked to Chronicle news items are not superficial changes, says Silverman. Rather, they offer the chance to realize the Internet's potential as a source of news: "unlimited sources of information, unlimited voices, unlimited stories." Silverman's TechBlog, SportsJustice and MeMo -- the Chronicle's cultural blog -- are the first three blogs to upgrade.
Indian government to grant accreditation to online journos
2005-05-18
By Diana Day:
Via The Times of India: After witnessing the popularity of blogging after the Dec. 26 Southeast Asian tsunami -- for both reporting and relief efforts -- and seeing how blogging impacted U.S. and British elections, Indian officials are beginning the process of granting accreditation to bloggers and other online journalists, according to The Times of India. For several years, online journos have had a "tough battle with the official machinery to gain access to government offices and confererences through the mandatory Press Information Bureau (PIB) accreditation," said the Times. [See related OJR article on bloggers and The Times of India.] "The idea is to sequester the genuine from the fraud and acknowledge those who really want to make a difference. They will be given facilities and better access through accreditation," said an official quoted in the article. He explained that the government is reviewing accreditation models used by the UN and commonwealth countries.
Online organization calls for support of pro-democracy blogging in Iran
2005-05-19
By Diana Day:
Via dotJournalism: The Committee to Protect Bloggers has organized Media Fast For Mojtaba to support Iranian blogger Mojtaba Saminejad, who declared a hunger strike May 14. Saminejad was arrested and imprisoned in February 2005 after he had previously been imprisoned from November 2004 to January 2005. dotJournalism quotes Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) as saying that Iran's crackdown on the community of pro-democracy bloggers is the "biggest-ever crackdown on online free expression" and that "online campaigns make a difference" because government officials don't want bad press. [See related OJR article on Iranian bloggers.]
More people use Internet to access health information, Pew report says
2005-05-19By Diana Day: Via Pew Internet & American Life Project: Journalists might be interested to know that since 2002, more people -- eight in ten Internet users -- are looking for online health topics, like nutrition, fitness and drugs, according to a recently released report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. People also use the Internet to access information about experimental treatments, health insurance and specific doctors and hospitals.
Chinese city governments recruit stealth bloggers
2005-05-19By Diana Day: Via Reuters.com: In an effort to control the information people access on the Internet, several cities in China have recruited online commentators whose job will be to influence public opinion among the nation's 100 million Internet users and to take the government's side in online forums, according to a weekly newspaper. One of the recruited writers quoted in the newspaper said that the government commentators "'will guide public opinion as ordinary netizens.'" A journalism dean at a Chinese university called the practice of having anonymous government-supported writers on the Internet "'suspicious'" and said it was "'not good for the natural expression of public opinion.'"
Additionally, Beijing's Internet police force is thought to be responsible for other intrusions into free expression on the Internet, like jailing Internet writers and shutting down or blocking sites -- domestic and foreign -- that have content the government finds objectionable.
Australians explore advertising on blogs
2005-05-20By Diana Day: Via The Australian: After watching its new blog hosting site, Spaces, shoot up Web charts after only a month of operation, the Australian Internet company ninemsn -- a joint-venture arrangement between Microsoft and Publishing and Broadcasting Limited, Australia’s leading media company -- wants to convince advertisers that marketing on blogs is the next big thing. While Australian advertisers are just beginning to explore the possibility of marketing on blogs, the practice has “exploded” in the last year in the U.S., said The Australian.
"’We think there is a huge potential for the advertiser. The advertising dollars are always going to follow the eyeballs and we see this as having great growth potential,’" said a ninemsn official. But others wonder if there are enough blog readers in Australia to support the practice of blog advertising on a large scale.
And there’s still the concern that market infiltration into blogs “may affect and perhaps even destroy the nature of blogs – which tend to be opinionated and often controversial,” said The Australian.
Blog advertising cheap and useful to some, just hype to others
2005-05-20By Diana Day: Via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Pennsylvania Tourism Office is paying history afficionado Robert McCreary $3,000 plus expenses to blog his historical travels around Pennsylvania this summer, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Using blogs to advertise is a growing trend, said the Post-Gazette, and while BusinessWeek magazine extolled the practice in a recent issue, critics like Minneapolis marketing consultant Graeme Thickins are concerned that blog advertising is all hype. Blogs are antibusiness and grass-roots, not exactly a match with the corporate world, said Thickins. Additionally, companies cannot control what bloggers are saying about them.
But, businesses -- particularly small ones -- have found that marketing on blogs is a cheap way to advertise and to stay connected with customers.
"'Blogging has become one of the most popular forms of online communication,'" said an officer with the Pennsylvania Tourism Office. She defended the Office's support of McCreary's blogging project, saying, "'It's a direct conversation with our target audience in a very intimate and engaging way.'"
Ventura County Star disables reader comments after racist comments, profanity
2005-05-23By Diana Day: Via latimes.com: The Ventura County Star closed down its online reader bulletin board Wednesday after too many inappropriate posts about race and immigration. The paper is looking for software to help with the monitoring efforts and hopes to reopen the comments feature soon, according to the Star's John Moore, assistant managing editor for new media and technology.
The comments feature on Ventura County Star stories is an example of how newspapers across the country "are wrestling with similar issues amid shifting expectations about how information is delivered and changing attitudes about the public's role as both news consumer and purveyor," said the Times. The shut down is an example of the difficulties newspapers sometimes face when they open readers' forums: "' ... even people on the cutting edge of this new culture are struggling with how far they can extend that kind of open mike,'" said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Washington D.C.-based Project for Excellence in Journalism.
[Update at 9:15 a.m. on 5.23.05: The Washington Post, in an article about the growing pains of so-called citizen journalism, reports that the Star has reopened its reader forums even though the news item about taking them down still appears on its front page.]
Jobs at WSJ conference: Next iTunes to support podcasting
2005-05-23By Diana Day: Via Dan Gillmor's blog on Bayosphere: Dan Gillmor predicts that podcasting, so far a bit of a tricky technology for users, could get a big boost as the market moves to compete with Apple's latest: Steve Jobs announced at the Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference this past weekend that the next version of iTunes will support podcasting.
[Update at 10:15 p.m. on 5.25: Dave Winer's May 25 post at Scripting News explains why this is such a big deal.]
Wikipedia growing fast, now second-largest reference site
2005-05-23By Diana Day: Via The Philadelphia Inquirer on philly.com: Wikipedia, the publicly written and edited online encyclopedia, now has more page visitors than About.com and MSN Encarta, according to online measurement company Hitwise. Dictionary.com is the most-visited reference site on the Web, but Wikipedia is growing fast -- Hitwise tracked a jump of 618 percent in the number of site visits since the beginning of 2004.
"Wikipedia offers up editorless editorial, raw content free from the wrought-iron blockades of publishing rejection and the blue pencils of editorial oversight," said the Inquirer.
Online journalists produce their own reality, says longtime Web reporter
2005-05-24
By Diana Day:
Via masternewmedia.org: Robin Good interviewed Jon Rappoport, longtime freelance investigative reporter and writer/editor for nomorefakenews.com, about the future of news. Their discussion, available as a transcript or to watch online, touches upon the definition and relevance of news blogs and Rappoport's assertion that online journalists who work independently to report their understanding of the news are the "renaissance of the next millennium. Producers of [their] own reality."
Video journalists: Can they help make TV news more like newspapers, less like Hollywood?
2005-05-24By Diana Day: Via Lost Remote: Lost Remote interviewed Michael Rosenblum, who claims to have trained over 5,000 people how to become VJs, or video journalists. A video journalist is a solo creator, shooter, writer and editor of a television news story. Arming these VJs with cheaper cameras that still get excellent quality will mean many more people out there gathering and shooting news, hence more stories to choose from than in the current model where only five crews with very expensive cameras shoot stories that have to be aired. Rosenblum says this innovation saves money and will help restructure the nature of TV news. "When you field 50 cameras a day, not unusual, in fact, more the norm, you cast television journalism in a whole new light -- the abiilty to take a risk," said Rosenblum.
While the Q & A doesn't specifically mention creating video for online viewing, any online journo or citizen media editor can imagine how this would affect online news -- the availability of an army of camera-in-hand VJs, ready to shoot, edit and produce a multitude of stories.
Online journalism scholarship established for BBC writer of 'tumour diary'
2005-05-25By Diana Day: Via Revolution: BBC News created an online journalism scholarship in honor of Ivan Noble, the science and technology writer who died earlier this year from a brain tumor, in response to reader request for a lasting memorial. Noble gained notoriety for writing an online "tumour diary" from September 2002 until he died at age 37 in January. The scholarship is "'an ongoing commitment to help reporters to learn the skills of web journalism,'" said Pete Clifton, editor of BBC News Interactive, and will give a new journalist with special interest in science and technology an opportunity to work on bbc.co.uk for six months.
Local political activist takes to the Net to protest easy availability of public records
2005-05-25By Diana Day: Via washingtonpost.com: Political activist Betty 'BJ' Ostergren has been using her Web site The Virginia Watchdog to protest the posting of public records online at a time when growing numbers of thieves are using this kind of information to commit identity fraud. She finds the Social Security numbers of prominent politicians, like Jeb Bush and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), and posts them online in efforts to demostrate just how easy it is to get people's private information on the Internet. Ostergren locates personal data on individuals county-by-county in Virginia and sends them letters to let them know just how much of their private information is available online. She urges them to appeal to local officials to keep public records in county courthouses, where people have to take some extra effort to get them.
Photoblogging takes off
2005-05-25By Diana Day: Via Sacramento Bee: More and more people use the Net to post photographs on blogs and photosharing sites like Flickr.com because better technology has made it easier, said the Post. "It's taking photography to a whole new level," said University of Southern California journalism professor and former OJR editor Larry Pryor, "Every person can be a photojournalist."
Reformist member of Syrian ruling party encourages debate, airs issues on Net
2005-05-26By Diana Day: Via washingtonpost.com: Web sites and e-mail have been key tools for encouraging debate among the many constituencies in Syria's complicated political scene. People like Ayman Abdel Nour, a member and reformer from the ruling Baath Party, played cat-and-mouse for weeks with government authorities who first blocked his site all4syria.org and then blocked the successive e-mail addresses he used to send his daily news update to his ever-growing list of subscribers -- from 1,700 last spring to 15,200 currently. Even though Abdel Nour is a member of the ruling Baath Party and is thus suspect to some dissidents, he and his e-mail bulletin have become well-known among Syria's intellectual elite. "They almost universally praise the role of his bulletin in airing debate and exchanging ideas that would have had no forum just a few years ago," said the Post.
Newspapers share their inner workings on the Net
2005-05-27By Diana Day: Via BostonHerald.com: In a time of sagging trust in the mainstream media, some newspapers, like the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman-Review, [along with The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as discussed in this Poynter.org posting] are finding ways to make their inner workings more transparent.
For several weeks now, the Review has started blogging its daily news meetings. Editor Steven A. Smith said "people who engage with the paper on the Web will be more likely to do so with the print edition" and that the blogs are an experiment to encourage reader engagement. Smith plans to start Webcasting the meetings starting late in the summer.
Sulzberger to give keynote at 2005 Online News Association conference
2005-05-29By Diana Day: Via Online News Association: The Online News Association has announced that Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., chairman of The New York Times Co., will be the keynote speaker for the 2005 conference, which will be held October 28-29 in New York City. "Over the past decade, Sulzberger has shaped and implemented innovative print, broadcast and online initiatives that are enabling the Company to compete in the 21st century global media marketplace," according to the ONA.
In an e-mail to ONA members, Executive Director Tom Regan wrote that this year's conference "will feature panel discussions designed to provide media leaders and online journalists with insights into key issues in the medium, along with how-to ideas about stories and projects that they can take back to their newsrooms. Discussions will focus on practical tips and best practices on topics such as increasing interactivity, the role of participatory journalism, growing audience, best uses of video and creating more original Web reporting." More information about the conference is available at the ONA site.
The conference chairperson is Anthony Moor, editor of OrlandoSentinel.com. "'This year's conference is a must-attend event for any journalist involved in the Web. Our keynote speaker will deliver some incredible insights into the future of online news. And as usual, the brainstorming and idea-sharing will provide everyone who attends with useful and powerful ideas to implement once they get home,'" said Moor.
Founded in 1999, the ONA comprises professionals and academics of all kinds who have an interest in or who produce Internet or other digital news.
World Association of Newspapers convenes conferences in Seoul
2005-05-30By Diana Day: Via World Association of Newspapers: The World Association of Newspapers is holding its 58th World Newspaper Congress and 12th World Editors Forum in Seoul from May 29 to June 1. Topics at the conferences include free newspapers, visual journalism, the increasing use and popularity of tabloid newspapers and new media, according to The Korea Times. The conference Web site features links to the Congress Weblog and the Editors Weblog.
Dan Gillmor has posted his World Editors Forum keynote speech "What Professional and Citizen Journalists Can Learn From Each Other" on his blog.
Blogs good for journalism, writes Guardian columnist
2005-05-31By Diana Day: Via Guardian Unlimited: Columnist John Naughton writes about how "large swathes of the journalistic profession ... are still in denial about blogging. In that sense, they resemble music industry executives circa 1999, denying the significance of online file-sharing. ... Blogging won't wipe out journalism, for the simple reason that journalism requires skills and resources that bloggers will never have," said Naughton. Blogs are good for journalism because they spread "good reporting and intelligent commentary ... like wildfire," and they give the public an opportunity to attract more attention than letters to the editor, wrote Naughton, who called this phenomenon "a small but significant change in our media ecology."