Bloggers, Citizen Media and Rather's Fall -- Little People Rise Up in 2004

There's something inherently fun about playing God. How else to explain the popularity of the third-person "God games" that have ruled the videogame charts? And when I got my two-year-old son the Little People farm scene and garage, he would play for hours, choosing the fates of those cute little plastic figures.

For way too long, it has been the mainstream media (MSM) that's played God with the American public, telling everyone what's news and what's not, what to play up and what to downplay. But 2004 was the year the power started shifting, that the Little People, if you will, started to tell the gods of media what the public really wanted.

And most of that shift happened during the crucible that was the presidential election season. The year dawned with Howard Dean getting slavish press attention for his groundswell of Internet support, both in money raised and in activity on his sizable group Weblog. The campaign ended with the blogosphere quickly trashing documents in the controversial "60 Minutes" report on President Bush's National Guard service. Even before there was a full report on what went wrong at CBS News, Dan Rather announced he was leaving his long-time anchor post.

In between, the bloggers became the place for news for political junkies -- even if it was from within the news organizations, such as ABCNews.com's The Note or National Review Online's The Corner. The mealy-mouthed, straight-laced MSN accounts of sound bites on the campaign trail were easily trumped by bloggers who graded the debates, argued over the Bush bulge and derided polling techniques as well as political contributions from journalists.

Not surprisingly, humorists such as The Daily Show's Jon Stewart and Ana Marie Cox (a.k.a. Wonkette) scored high as influential media icons as the "real" journalists' credibility faded. The blogosphere and online media has always been the perfect venue for personality-driven content, forwarded e-mail jokes and all-out rants.

Of course, the bloggers weren't the be-all, end-all for 2004. In the political realm, advocacy groups used the Net to take their issues to the public and the media, while political candidates dallied with online ads but never really made a major economic plunge. Plus, the radio world was rocked by Howard Stern's defection to satellite radio and the podcasting craze.

And citizen journalism started to sprout in small communities around the country, with Dan Gillmor's "We the Media" book becoming the bible for media operations trying to tap into participatory journalism. Gillmor himself even announced plans for a grassroots media startup company, right as two other high-profile ventures, BackFence.com and Pegasus News, came out of stealth mode.

Once again, I polled colleagues to find out what they thought were the important events, people and media outlets of the past year, while also nudging them for predictions of the coming year. The following is a selection of their comments, along with their Top 5 lists of the most influential people and happenings in the changing media realm.

Q: In 2004, what were the most important developments in the media realm related to the Internet and technology?

Bloggers gain cred:
"Bloggers getting credentials to the national political conventions (their crossover moment) while the traditional news organizations 'crossed over' into blogging during both the conventions." -- Jay Rosen, chair of the Journalism Department at New York University and author of PressThink.

"By far, this year's election - and how the bloggers shaped the way the media covered it - was the biggest development in online journalism. This was punctuated by two watershed moments. First, the Democratic National Committee opened up what had been a relatively sacrosanct event to a group of relatively unknown bloggers and showed the world how it can work! Second, Rathergate proved that bloggers have a tremendous amount of influence as fact-checkers in this increasingly networked world." -- Steve Rubel, vice president of CooperKatz & Co., author of Micropersuasion Weblog.

Political capital:
"Emergence of the Internet as a major resource for covering elections, especially online blogs and tools such as electoral college maps. Plus, the big boom in WiFi (and camera phones), making the Web omnipresent in daily news and life, as well as broad acceptance of Google, Overture and paid search ads across Web media." -- Peter Krasilovsky, analyst and consultant with Krasilovsky Consulting.

"Because stories originated, or were influenced by blogs, the media had to acknowledge the role of these independent operators. The rise of blogs is impacting the professional class of journalism and creating a class of citizen journalists that often wield significant influence. The professional media will continue to be suspicious of the 'amateurs,' while the influence of the self-organized over the media, and politics in general, will continue to grow." -- Michael Turk, eCampaign Director for the Republican National Committee.

Echo chambers online:
"I'm dim-witted and couldn't spot any uber-events this year, sorry. I do think that three (sometimes conflicting) trends of darkness continued in 2004: consolidation, fragmentation and the erosion of quality. Having fewer and fewer bigger and bigger corporations gobble up more media turf is not good for culture, entertainment or news. One sensible response to this, at least in news, has been fragmentation; technology has made it much easier for people to get their news (and culture) only in the flavor they like. Yes, this tech explosion (blogs, social networking, RSS, etc.) expands the avenues for more creativity, expression, community and flavors. But this is happening at a time when real (not virtual) demographic communities are fading and I worry that in the short-term at least, our response has been more alienation, not less." -- Dick Meyer, editorial director and columnist for CBSNews.com.

Blogs without borders:
"The greatest story out there is the growing number of blogs in places like Iraq and Iran. In general, blogs allow common people a way to bypass the stranglehold of the traditional media, and exchange information with one another directly, in an unfiltered form. By providing people an easy way to publish their views and link to each other, blogs provide a ready way for people separated by geography and other barriers to have a conversation about topics and issues that they share in common." -- Patrick Frey, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney, and proprietor of Patterico's Pontifications blog.

Consumers grab control:
"2004 saw the rise of consumer-centric media to an extent not previously seen. News consumers clearly are exhibiting greater control over when and how they obtain news, as well as what they define as news and the sources they seek out -- and media companies are feeling the impact in everything from the decline of young, male television viewers to the greater expectation of an always-on, real-time, 24x7 news cycle. This trend includes everything from Tivo and its DVR cousins to satellite radio to the use of RSS readers and personalized news aggregation sites." -- Neil Budde, director, Yahoo News.

Q: What was the biggest disappointment in online journalism in 2004? What angered you most?

Disappointments:
"The biggest disappointment was that Time magazine did not name the bloggers the people of the year, even despite all their gains." -- Steve Rubel

"The extremely low level of debate, reflection and truth-telling within traditional journalism about who is a journalist, what are the standards to be preserved, what's happening because of the Net, and what it's going to take for serious journalism to thrive in the next era." -- Jay Rosen

"It remained extremely difficult to use the Web as my central information source in covering the election (unlike other news). No schedules, no guides. Uncertain editing … Plus, most news sites continue to be understaffed, and they only try to give the impression of really updating their site throughout the day. It almost amounts to consumer fraud." -- Peter Krasilovsky

"I am always disappointed to see newspapers, such as my local paper (the Los Angeles Times) turning a deaf ear to the blogosphere. I frequently write the Times with corrections to items based on things I learned reading blogs. If the Times assigned one or more editors to read blogs, I wouldn't have to write them with corrections so often!" -- Patrick Frey

"Sadly, much of what I predicted a year ago - at the height of the Dean Bubble - came true. The lowest-common-denominator mass media reasserted itself over new media, despite the utopian fantasies of technology evangelists. U.S. newspapers will do almost anything to avoid improving the quality of their printed product, which means providing their advertisers with an affluent, suburban demographic. So they'll continue to use the Internet as they have for a decade: as a public relations exercise to provide a semblance of accountability." -- Andrew Orlowski, journalist and critic at The Register.

"The launch of 'faux blogs' by major media outlets looking to cash in on blog hype." -- Robert Cox, blog strategy consultant and managing editor of The National Debate blog.

"I wish that online reporters had broken more news and shaped more of the coverage than we did in the campaign. We're very promiscuous with the august word 'journalism' in the Web news world, but really we're just beginning to earn our capital 'J.' " -- Dick Meyer

What angers you:
"Anti-social behavior by the big boys: The registration policies, pop up ads, pay walls, archiving systems and linking policies of the commercial media's online news sites, which are slowing down the Web, and undoing all of the medium's advantages. Second choice: the unconscionable and unaffordable ignorance of the Web and how it works in mainstream newsrooms." -- Jay Rosen

"I'm cranky over the growing myth that blogging is journalism; sometimes it is, usually it's not. Blogs don't need to be news to be good; news blogs aren't immune to the sins of MSM or the pamphleteers of long gone times." -- Dick Meyer

"Newspapers requiring registration to read online versions of their newspapers." -- Robert Cox

Q: What do you predict will happen to transform the media landscape in 2005?

Blogs in the spotlight:
"An indepedent blogger will be successfully sued and personally bankrupted by a deep-pocketed litigant, most likely a media company. A major government official will be forced to resign due to a story broken exclusively on a blog. A major newspaper publisher will experiment by converting the online version of one of its papers entirely into a meta-blog with comments enabled on every article (post) for registered users who get home delivery of the newspaper and in so doing stumble across an entirely new understanding of what constitutes news reporting (the original article PLUS reader comments)." -- Robert Cox

"Transform? The dam won't break in '05, but it will continue to leak. We'll see more revenue-rot in corporate media, as advertisers and readers continue to defect to the Internet. And corporate media's editorial budgets will continue shrinking, as corporations try to protect profit margins. On the other side, we'll see more solo journalists, a.k.a. bloggers, breaking and leading major stories, and earning a decent living without bosses." -- Henry Copeland, founder of Blogads.com, which places advertising in Weblogs.

"In 2005 social media and traditional media will contunue to converge. The traditional media will adopt blog-like features, such as blogrolls, comments and trackbacks. In addition, one or more bloggers will be sued and perhaps even successfully prosecuted for libel. This will force the more dedicated bloggers to organize in some way to set up a legal defense fund and also push harder to get the same First Amendment protections the mainstream media get." -- Steve Rubel

"Blogs will continue to grow in importance. The depth of experience represented by bloggers collectively far exceeds even the largest research division of a traditional media outlet. That collected experience will continue to serve as a fact check for the traditional media." -- Michael Turk

"I expect blogs will catch the mainstream media with its pants down many, many more times. I don't think that the CBS forged documents scandal was a fluke; I think that it was just the beginning. Bloggers are not special in and of themselves -- but the blogosphere (which is really just a large collection of mostly smart people) knows more as a group than any single reporter, editor, or even news publication. The sooner the mainstream media recognizes this, and put the blogosphere to use rather than fighting it, the better off the mainstream media (and its readers) will be." -- Patrick Frey

Community media come to radio:
"I admire the certainty of your question: a singular landscape will be transformed! Such a certainty makes an answer impossible, because the problems in each country are different. Under Burlusconi, Italy's problems are different to the UK's. I'll speak for the UK. Radio will continue its commercial and artistic revival; Community Media will flourish as almost 200 FM licenses are issued." -- Andrew Orlowski

More video and convergence:
"Increased sponsorship of video is going to greatly increase the amount of video on news sites, moving it away from being a mere cost center. One or two of the major Yellow Pages companies (and maybe even a couple of newspaper firms) are going to open up their pocket books to make some really big deals to buy search firms. This -- and competitive responses to such moves -- will probably accelerate convergence of information, services and news." -- Peter Krasilovsky

No more downers:
"As far as online news goes, I dearly hope that the business is solid and mature enough to be immune to any more single-year transformations. We can't afford any more of those." -- Dick Meyer

Scrutiny for free content:
"The issue of how online sites affect their print counterparts is bubbling steadily beneath the surface, and is set to erupt in the upcoming year or two. WSJ.com obviously has a big stake in this discussion, so I don't pretend to be a neutral or disinterested player. But the idea that giving away your content doesn't affect print circulation and revenue is becoming too ludicrous for all but the most die-hard proponents of this flat-earth theory to keep promulgating. Now, there is a question as to whether the tradeoff is worthwhile, and that's a legitimate issue -- that is, is the increased exposure and traffic a newspaper company gets by offering content free worth the hit to the printside's circulation and ad revenue? Maybe it is, or I should say, maybe it will be someday.

"Online advertising is growing rapidly, thank goodness, but the disparity in what Web readers generate in revenue and what print readers generate (especially on free sites) is huge, and is not at all made up by the higher traffic numbers. Meanwhile, newspaper circulation is falling at many papers, not just at those that had to adjust their numbers after the recent scandals. There are lots of reasons for this, but to believe that free content online isn't among them is analogous to telling Columbus not to set sail because he'll fall off the western edge of Earth." -- Bill Grueskin, managing editor of Wall Street Journal Online.

Broadband drives rich content:
"Having crossed the 50% level in U.S. household broadband penetration, we can look forward to the rise of more news applications tailored to the audience with fast, always-on connections and home wireless networks. Video will be a component of such offerings, but they'll also offer richer interfaces made possible by more sophisticated (and larger) page code or other software." -- Neil Budde

Q: What do you hope for most in 2005 (on any topic)

Political balance:
"The Tennessee BloggerCon will successfully bring together bloggers from all political stripes (April 2005) in the first 'blue city, red state' BloggerCon." -- Robert Cox

Scientific/religious balance:
"In recent years, extremists from two camps have sought to pick an unnecessary fight with each other, effectively ending a social contract which had held good for over 200 years. Scientific evangelists (typified by Dennett and Dawkins, who deny metaphysics of any kind, particularly religion) have picked a fight with extreme religious representatives, typified by the creationist fringe. In 2004 this bled into the political discourse.

"What I hope for most in 2005 is a reassertion of Stephen Jay Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria, and the recognition by zealots of both camps that they aren't supported by the overwhelming majority of most of their constitutents; and that science and metaphysics need each other. With its positivist history, however, I fear the United States is ill-equipped to make such a reassertion: since junk science and junk religiosity also need each other, and will probably flourish." -- Andrew Orlowski

Secure nuclear materials:
"That we will take stronger steps to secure nuclear materials around the world, to reduce the possibility of nuclear terrorism, which is far and away the most serious known threat facing humanity." -- Patrick Frey

Day of reckoning for MSM:
"The demise of an intransigent, outmoded, hostile and frequently clueless newsroom culture, which is preventing journalism from reckoning with its problems and discussing them honestly. And, along with that, I hope for the emergence of a new and younger generation of journalists capable of pushing (and shaming) their elders." -- Jay Rosen

Wish lists:
"The abolition of reality TV, professional basketball and loud, public cell-phone talkers would be a good start for me." -- Dick Meyer

"I hope that more PR professionals formally recognize that bloggers are a form of media. We took big steps this year. Now we need to get more on board." -- Steve Rubel

"Emergence of better ways to buy micro-content so that people can honestly buy content, music, movies and so forth instead of being turned into (young) criminals." -- Peter Krasilovsky

Online political power grows:
"Continued media interest in online politics. Often the media only focus on the role of technology in politics in the days leading up to the election. Continued media coverage of the power people can have through online organizing will do much to benefit the political system." -- Michael Turk

Top 5 Lists
List the five most influential people, media outlets, blogs, or events that changed the media business in 2004.

Henry Copeland
1. The blog swarm: with myriad small bites, swarming bloggers can bust an event into its constituent elements faster than any top-down organization.
2. Dailykos.com, Atrios and Talkingpoints set the agenda for Democratic insiders.
3. Instapundit, Powerline, Slantpoint, Little Green Footballs upended Dan Rather.
4. Blogads.com: without traditional corporate overhead, collaborating bloggers created America's biggest (virtual) political magazine.

Robert Cox
1. Dave Winer - the Blogfather
2. Adam Curry - podcasting (with Dave)
3. Dan Rather - demonstrated that journalists ignore blogs at their own peril
4. Howard Dean - his presidential campaign made professionals sit up and take notice of blogs
5. Ana Marie Cox - sex, lies and politics create world's first blog-generated media star

Patrick Frey
1. Jeff Jarvis helped set up bloggers in Iraq and Iran.
2. Power Line and INDC Journal helped bring down Dan Rather.
3. Dan Gillmor wrote "We, the Media" and started a grassroots journalism venture.
4. Bill Ardolino of INDC Journal was a prime mover in the CBS documents scandal.
5. The bloggers of Iraq the Model showed true courage in the pursuit of freedom and democracy.

Peter Krasilovsky
1.Howard Dean (and MeetUp). They changed political fundraising and grassroots organization by incorporating the Web. Now others will take over.
2.Google Desktop search. It is going to open up a whole 'nother dimension to news and information (and maybe even have a creepy side too).
3.U2 and iTunes/iPod. Marriage of band (and content) with hardware suggests bigger, better things down the road.
4. Marketwatch acquisition by the Wall Street Journal. We’ll see whether the Journal is really complemented by Marketwatch to the tune of $500 million (I don't think so).
5. JibJab. Satire gets reinvented and it is all on the Web!

Andrew Orlowski
1. Karl Rove
After Karl, there is no 2-5.

Jay Rosen
1. George W. Bush for putting into practice a new policy on the press that downgrades its importance and denies it any status as "the fourth estate" or quasi-official watchdog.
2. Dan Rather and Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News, for their monstrous lapse in judgment and deaf response when questions were raised about the Texas Air National Guard story.
3. Joe Trippi, initially as Dean's campaign manager, then as hero to Net youth, then as book author and commentator for MSNBC.
4. Dan Gillmor because he published "We the Media," which means that journalists have no excuse for failing to grasp what is happening with technology, the Net, the press and the public.
5. OhMyNews in South Korea because it is proving that citizen journalism can work.

Steve Rubel
1. Adam Curry and Dave Winer for showing that podcasting could do to radio, what blogging did to print.
2. Dan Rather showed that no one is safe from the ire of citizen journalists.
3. Dan Gillmor leaving the Mercury News to launch a citzen journalism project was the "shot heard 'round the media world."
4. Howard Dean was a pioneer in the use of blogs as an unmediated communications channel.
5. Microsoft's Channel 9 is a powerful direct-to-audience channel that wrote the book on how to bypass the media.

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