“We are in the post-integrity age of journalism.”

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I was scanning AdRants when the quote above caught my eye. Here’s a couple of chunks from the post:

“Want to hear an interesting conversation about social media and it’s impact on marketing, advertising, public relations and journalism? Want to know how the role of public relations is changing in the world of public relations? Want to explore the differences in mentality between new media and old? Want to now whether or not it’s sinful to publish a story before every last detail of the story is known? Want to know why readers, who are now commenters, are so important to the whole of the story? Then give this podcast a listen.”

I caught about 15 minutes over lunch and look forward to hearing the rest. It sounds like a pretty good peek into the minds of some PR pros, with the focus on New Media (whatever that is). If you blog, send or receive news releases… I think you’ll find this worth the listen.

Will Twitter be bigger than Facebook?

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The guys (no gender implied) at AdRants are big fans of Twitter:

“Writing on Entrecard Graham Langdon makes the argument Twitter will be bigger than Facebook. He’s right. Twitter is many things but it lacks the baggage and some of the “creepy” aspects of Facebook. All within 140 characters, Twitter is IM, email, mobile app, chat room, focus group, news source, a wall on which to bounce ideas, a research resource, presence indicator.

It’s usually the simplest of things that have the most value. Facebook is bloated. Twitter is Internet Lite (I refuse to dub it anything with a 2.0 attached). It’s a simple but ever so powerful interface that brings so many things together and functions as a jumping off point to an endless collection of resources and information.

It’s pretty much guaranteed you’ll interpret this as idiotic puffery but until you use Twitter, really use it for a while, you won’t really understand what you’re missing and you don’t realy have the right to comment. Seriously. Give it a try.”

I confess I’ve given up trying to explain Twitter. And it took me more than a year to come around.

Third-world Crime and Punishment

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From the monthly newsletter written by my brother and his wife:

“During Medieval times when there was a theft in a village, the people set up a “Hue and Cry”.  This meant yelling, “Thief!” at the top of one’s lungs so that the other villagers would be alerted and the thief would be caught.  The system worked so well that often the hue and cry would be heard several miles away from the scene of the actual theft.

Here in Indonesia, a third-world country, there is also a system of “Hue and Cry”.  Only, the word thief is changed to the Indonesian word for thief, “Maling”.  As we and I sat down to lunch today, we heard the local “hue and cry” of “Maling!  Maling!” and we ran outside to see who the thief was.  He was a cowardly one; that was evident by the way he yanked the necklace off my next door neighbor’s neck and continued on his way ON HIS MOTORCYCLE!

This is a frequent occurrence in this country and if/when the thief is caught, he is usually beaten by the crowd while waiting for the police to show up.  He then may or may not receive a fair trial, depending on how much money the family can put up for his bail.”

The Daily Bugle

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NewspapersThe local newspaper here in Jefferson City has been locally owned for a long time. It was recently sold to a group with headquarters in Arkansas. As George and I discussed this over coffee a couple of weeks ago, he wondered why someone would buy a newspaper when it seems like –nationally– their profits are in free fall (I love that expression).

During our chat, George said he thought the local paper only had four full-time reporters. I have no idea if that’s accurate but, for the purposes of this post, let’s assume it is. It started me thinking. What if the local paper just shut down? What sort of online alternative would be possible? Could you create one using volunteers?

You might start by evaluating what’s currently in the paper: Local news, state news, world and national news, features, business and finance, entertainment, opinion, sports, community, obits, weather and classifieds.

I certainly won’t be the first to point out that much of the information in the local newspaper is available from other sources (weather, state news, national  news, etc). The one area a local paper can and should do better than anyone else is local. Local news, sports, business, entertainment… local, local, local.

What if you had one, maybe two “professional journalists,” coordinating a group of volunteers. Could you do a credible job of covering local news and events? For example, could a dozen highly motivated volunteers –armed with digital cameras and recorders– cover the local news as well as four paid staffers?

Hey, no question it would be different but I see no reason it couldn’t work. We’re already seeing a growing number of examples around the country. And, yes, a number of these efforts have failed.

Even the smallest newspapers have massive overhead. Paper, ink, printing presses, etc. That means you need LOTS of advertisements. What I’m envisioning has virtually no overhead. A few hundred dollars a year for web hosting. You could cover a lot of local news for the tiniest fraction of what a “real newspaper” costs.

I suspect that some small town papers are morphing in this direction already and one day the print edition will just disappear and the transition will be complete.