Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006
WeMedia: Reading body language
I am sitting here at the WeMedia conference, and as a professional journalist, I of course have a degree in reading body language. It’s an incredibly important skill that all journalists are trained in. It’s what sets professional journalists apart from these amateurs. Look at the insightful analysis that the Washington Press Corps does everyday in reading the body language of our leaders. It’s essential to our role as the press in a democracy.
I’m sitting here watching someone several levels of bureaucracy above my head at the BBC, Helen Boaden. And she’s talking about blogs. Using that skill of interpretation of body language that only years of training have provided me as a journalist, I noticed that she was intensely uncomfortable when talking about bloggers and how they claimed the head of Eason Jordan of CNN last year. Bullying is what she calls it. But she’s bullish about citizen journalism.
Discomfort about blogs, but not about citizen journalism. Discuss.
(I’ll have to let Suw vouch for me that as an American I do actually have a sense of humour and sarcasm.)
UPDATE: Ms Boaden just said: “I want to know who checks the bloggers.” There’s a nugget for ya. WeMedia. More like US and THEM. And remember this, people who pay my bills. Just trying to prod us to be better so smile and breathe.
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May 3rd, 2006 at 9:21 pm
‘course, given the cultural differences between Yanks & Brits, it may be that Ms. Boaden might have been expressing a deeply felt enthusiasm for blogging and bloggers. It’s just buried in a cold, class-ridden, stiff-upper-lipness, inaccessible to you easy-going, meritocratic, floppy-lipped American types. Or maybe not… which is a shame, cos the Buzz Machine blog from We Media was very heartening re. Aunty Beeb’s new Web 2.0 clothes.
May 7th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
We media wrap up and coverage
meta-technorati-tags=wemedia, wemediafringe, fringe, bbc, london
So We Media 2006 has finally closed its doors and a lot of tension has died down now. This gives me a chance to go over some of the low and highs of the conferenceA couple of highs to g…
May 10th, 2006 at 11:24 am
Who checks the bloggers
Just got back from a break and been catching up. This post caught my eye from Kevin Anderson. Its a rather humorous take on how comfortable the mainstream media actually are with blogging. The main thrust of the arguement from the BBC representative se…
May 10th, 2006 at 12:50 pm
‘who checks the blogs’?
It’s a non argument. If we over at the PSFK blogs get the sht kicked out of us immediately - via email and more importantly the comments box. A newspaper takes weeks to reply and publish complaints
Citizen journalism grows not because there the “public” are in control of the writing - but the readers are in control of their media consumption.