Footpath to the Standards of Trust for Bloggers and MSM

"The future of the big media that the young have abandoned is not certain. But do you remember when an automobile manufacturer, desperately seeking young customers, plaintively promised that its cars were 'not your father's Oldsmobile'? Do you remember Oldsmobiles?" - George Will 4/24/05

This week, the intellectuals of blogtopia have been consumed by the buzz and speculation over the future of Print and Broadcast Journalism. In our first of many footpaths to knowledge, today we wander into the heart of the question: "Why has trust in MSM fallen so sharply with the rise of weblogs?"[reader: if "footpaths"="WTF?"; see bottom]

We begin with Shel Israel recalling his breakfast with the inventor of ICQ and Instant Messaging, Yossi Vardi:

..."The Internet is word-of-mouth on steroids," he said. Vardi pointed me to research that says that conversations are #1 form of human entertainment, over story-telling. Yossi also pointed me to Emory University Prof. Gregory Burns who has done research that reveals when release the same brain chemicals when they are collaborating as when they are having sex or gambling. "We are hot-wired to collaborate, "says Vardi."

***

David Weinberger reflects on why he would never do another MSNBC blogs-on-blogging gig

What makes the blogosphere interesting to me is not that there are moderate left and right voices talking about mainstream topics. Mainstream major stories are about issues such as freakish celebrity pedophiles, a spit match over a fight from 30 years ago that the press is hoping to revive, and whatever unfortunate child has been reported missing and presumed (better for the story) murdered. I'm in the blogosphere to escape from this degradation of values...

 ...I just couldn't face implicitly confirming the idea that the blogosphere consists of big voices arguing with one another — spit fights! — instead of 10 million real voices engaged in every variety of human conversation and delight.

So, fuck it. I quit.

The first person to comment on David's post was the great sage himself, Jay Rosen of Pressthink; below is conversation(edited for short attention spams):

Jay Rosen: Yes, to all of it. I have had these thoughts many times in different TV situations. But I wanted you to finish the thought. I mean top it off. I quit because...

David Weinberger: ...the mainstream media is irredeemably corrupt?

Jay Rosen:  You asking me? I wanted to know what the ultimate grounds for judgment were in your decision so eloquently put: "fuck it, I quit." (snip)

I quit because... My question is open ended, but seriously intended. You just happened to open yourself up to it by taking symbolic action when you quit. Weren't you just complaining that you were a little uncomfortable here because it's not like it was a hard thing to do to call the limo off. And here I am giving you a proper hard time and you're like, "can you make this easier, Jay?"

In the end, you quit for a reason you wanted expressed -- after all, you quit and blogged about it, right? ...Why did you say "quit" and not "stop?" They are different symbolically, that's why. Symbolic, not difficult, you told us. Fair enough. But riddle me this, Dave: you wouldn't quit unless it clarified things to quit, right?

David Weinberger (eventually on April 23rd): Jay Rosen, ever sensitive to nuance, wonders why I used the word "quit" in my last sentence, instead of "stop." The answer is that I was instilling the episode with false drama, as a type of self-aggrandizement. That's a disservice to truth and I apologize. My word choice throughout the piece also reflects some anger, some of which is directed at [Warning: Generalization ahead] the MSM's laughably corrupt values but some of which is born of my own disappointment at not getting to be on TV any more. It's complex.

Jay Rosen marks the end of this path in his essay Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over :

Here is one advantage bloggers have in the struggle for reputation-- for the user's trust. They are closer to the transaction where trust gets built up on the Web. There's a big difference between tapping a built-up asset, like the St. Pete Times "brand," and creating it from scratch. Bloggers are "building their reputations from the ground up," as Hiler said, and to do this they have to focus on users. They have to be in dialogue. They have to point to others and say: listen to him! The connection between what they do and whether they are trusted is much alive and apparent. In journalism that connection has been harder to find lately. Journalists don't know much about it.

Notes on "footpaths":

I can't help it! This week's experience chasing CNN guerrillas has resulted in me thinking like a marketer. Since my tagline is "bushwhacking through the information jungle", I'm first of all designing a more organic Jungle theme. In addition, I decided I'd start a new daily[1] content type called a "Footpath". Basically, a footpath is a post-modernist[3] guide to an issue I've been tracking in the news. The post itself will always be an "out-of-the-mainstream" collection of quotes on the particular subject. The quotes themselves are picked because I found them to be the most thought provoking or outside the realm of main-stream opinion. Its encouraged to explore every source of a quote in its entirety.  When seen as a whole, the footpath will always make a hidden argument. Think of it as Highlights for thought-junkies and knowledge addicts. "Can you find the hidden pictures?" 

Meta-Notes:

1. By daily, I of course mean anything from semi-daily to bi-weekly to me being a total liar, and this post is one of a kind... The lonely daily that only lasted a day[1]. 

3. By "post-modernist", I of course mean, "I have no idea what I am talking about." In otherwords, rather than struggling to explain an idea that makes no sense, I've opted to call it "post-modernist". I am allowed to do this without any risks thanks to Murdock's Law[2], which clearly states that no reader is ever intelligent, or informed enough to question any author's use of the term post-modernist. The reader who questions is in all cases, nothing more than a mere infantile neo-structuralist lacky.

Meta-Meta-Notes:

1. O the forced irony! how lazy of an appearence thou has cast upon me!

2. I invented Murock's Law to add a sort of pompous scientific ambience to these foot notes. That's right, I'm such hot-self-depricating-shit that you best back off -- I wouldn't want you to get burned.