We the Media
Chapter 1
Gillmor makes the point that Internet journalism existed before the September 11th in 2001, the event that many people feel marked the birth of the online journalist. Gillmor traced the everybody journalism that the Web created to phenomena created by earlier technologies. For example, Gillmor argues, callers to talk radio shows were the precursors to today’s bloggers. Although the technology of the Web has little precedent in history, the feedback loop in such model has been around for some time. Newspapers, magazines, TV and radio are all one-to-many formats. The Web can be both of those things, but for the first time, there was a medium that allowed many-to-many communication.
Chapter 2
The innovation that led most to the development of modern online journalism is the idea of the “read-write” Web. Gillmor says that it was the ability of people everywhere to easily edit Web pages that allowed online journalism to flourish. It is exactly this outside-looking-in quality that separates online journalism from traditional media. Early ideas like mail lists and online forums eventually gave way to Weblogs, which have truly changed the game and whose impact we are still just beginning to discover. A key difference between blogs and traditional media is that blogs are the domain of amateurs and traditional media the home of professionals. Blogs and media convergence are beginning to blur that line. Technologies such as wikis and SMS messaging are still in their infancy and not yet used extensively by the news media. RSS, which stands for “Really Simple Syndication” could create a revolution in the way news is delivered to consumers.
Chapter 3
Weblogs claimed “their first scalp” when they stepped into report a story that the major news media seemed to ignore: then-Senate majority leader Trent Lott’s seeming endorsement of Strom Thurmond’s segregationist past. Gillmor makes the point that bloggers have an advantage over traditional media because of their incredible numbers and specialization. He also contends that they, as outsiders, have greater access to newsmakers in some respects than do the mainstream media. Blogs help ideas to spread like wildfire, and they give the power to spread those ideas to huge numbers of people. The result is that with so many more eyes and ears watching and listening, people in power had better be on their best behavior. The egalitarian Web allows for the collection and distribution of the mundane (the author’s quest to upgrade his DVR) to the profound (the Memory Hole’s FOI requests for pictures of flag-draped coffins).
Chapter 4
New technology also has the effect of watching the watchdogs; for example, the Defense Department’s habit of offering transcripts of interviews online. It is also helpful for public relations people and businesses, as blogs and online communities have become, in a way, focus groups that help them to fine tune their messages or their products. The potential, however, isn’t limited to PR professionals – anyone from any industry can use blogs to get their message out. Gillmor talks about CEOs and lawyers and even actor Wil Wheaton.
Chapter 5
The value of the Internet to political campaigns is now almost certainly greater than it was when Gillmor’s book was published. Gillmor was just slightly ahead of his time: his biggest example for a national political campaign that relied heavily on the Internet was the failed 2004 presidential bid of former Vermont governor Howard Dean. As we all now know, Barack Obama’s campaign made heavy use of the Internet to amass millions of supporters and donors at the individual level as Dean had tried (and only partially succeeded) to do.
Chapter 6
Gillmor says that professional journalists and traditional media outlets had better start using Web tools like blogs, and sooner rather than later. Like the political stuff from the previous chapter, Gillmor saw the writing on the wall years before others. Now, as newspapers across the country lay off workers or close their doors on a nearly daily basis, this observation is pretty obvious. There is a danger in opening the gates and allowing all comers to try their hand at this journalism business – there are bound to be plenty of amateurs who are simply no good at it. But there are also tremendous opportunities. For example, and this post-dates Gillmor’s book, it would be hard to find better journalism coming out of the Hurricane Katrina disaster than the blogs of New Orleans’ Times-Picayune.
Chapter 7
In Chapter 7, Gillmor talks about the ways that the Internet empowers and encourages those on the sidelines to get involved in the game. He talks about several occasions when this new alternative media managed to scoop the traditional, mainstream media – for example, the anti-war protest in San Francisco. He also talks about the potential for sites like Wikipedia, but I am more skeptical than Gillmor is. Although I certainly appreciate the magnitude of getting more and more voices involved in reporting the news, I worry that letting amateurs do the work will result in an amateurish, unreliable product.
Chapter 8
The eighth chapter, “What’s Next,” is Gillmor’s attempt to peer into the crystal ball to see what is next in the world of the Internet. Gillmor hedges his bets by noting that in the mid-1990s, when the World Wide Web was becoming more and more popular, he did not see some of the advances already in place at the time his book was published, such as blogs and Google. I was interested in the things that Gillmor mentioned that have not worked out the way he expected. For example, he expected Microsoft’s NewsJunkie to become a major force in the news media but, as far as I can tell, the project never even got off the ground.
Chapter 9
One of the Internet’s strengths is among its greatest weaknesses: anonymity. The Web allows users the freedom of patrolling its pages freely, but that anonymity can also give malicious users great power to manipulate information. “Trolls” can swarm message boards to purposely distort and mislead. Unscrupulous public relations firms can use deceptive techniques to promote their products and clients. One antidote, Gillmor suggests, is the combined strength of the billions of pairs of eyes on the Internet, watchful for such scurrilous claims and deceptive acts. An army of fact checkers is on hand to undo the harm done.
Chapter 10
In Chapter 10, Gillmor discusses the numerous legal questions raised by the Internet. Online journalism is similar to the traditional news media in that its participants are susceptible to the same legal hazards – libel, defamation, plagiarism. The difference is that the “cut-and-paste” nature of the World Wide Web magnifies the potential for these problems many times over. Not only are the abuses themselves potentially destructive, but so too are the reactions (and extreme overreactions) by nervous organizations as they try to head off the threats before they get out of hand.
Chapter 11
Chapter 11 continues where Chapter 10 left off – with large corporations and governments seeking to assert control over the Internet. Fearing the loss of profit, media companies (including Hollywood studios, the music industry and electronics and software companies) try their best to create software fixes to disrupt the “piracy” of their products. The side effect, whether intended or not, is a clamping down of some of our most treasured freedoms, including the freedom of speech. Around the world, governments use this technology to suppress dissent.
Chapter 12
In the final chapter, Gillmor summarizes his arguments, about the potential the future has as the voice of Big Media is transferred into the hands of the “former audience.” Gillmor puts his money where his mouth is: to prove his dedication to the openness of the Internet and to prove his belief that such openness is crucial to growth and development, Gillmor has offered his book online for free and has even taken the unusual step of limiting the copyright on the book from the standard author’s-life-plus-75-years term to a mere 14 years.
