The world we live in...
December 08, 2006
You can keep your eyes down and all of that, but, unfortunately, the world has its fare share of scumbags, and sometimes trouble invites itself. Jackie took the matter in her own hands, and published the story of how she was assaulted on the underground, along with a picture of one of the offenders, on her blog: it provoked a wave of sympathy in the blogosphere, as well as questions of the legality of publishing that picture, but the offenders were nailed in the end. In the wake of this incidence, she was approached to do an interview for The Evening Standard, and this is certainly food for thought:
"I am okay about blogging this stuff, because I’m in control of how my story goes out there and I can keep more sensitive, hurtful details to myself. This is my media. When it comes to newspapers or TV stations, I’m giving up control and could be portrayed as someone I am not.
From the comments:
"I didn’t say I was in control of my story in the blogosphere - I said that I am in control of how my story goes out there. Believe me, I’ve been telling PR flacks for years that they can’t control the message and never could, so I’m not about to make the stupid mistake of thinking I can. What I can control is what is presented here, on my own press. With the Evening Standard, I have no such control."
To me, this is yet another snaphot of how the world is changing: the amazing power of new technology, in this case mobile phone cameras and blogs, and how media has some way to go when it comes to that recurring issue of rebuilding trust...
As long as the mainstream media are all chasing ratings and revenues, thay are hardly concerned about trust. Sure, if they get high confidence scores it can be an extra bonus, but it is not their main focus.
And if you look at the web versions of the two main newsstand tabloids in Norway, you clearly see that they are happy to erode the remains of their credibility as newspapers as long as there is a market for an endless stream of gossip.
And, drowning in this gossip, they seem unable to see the devlopments in the blogsphere and on the interactive web where people are quitely building their communities, exchanging information and getting on with their work, their hobbies and their lives.
Posted by: Knut Albert | December 14, 2006 at 02:20 PM
True. You do have quite a wide debate about this internationally though, and some media organisations have started to grasp the importance of both rebuilding trust and connecting with a generation of bloggers.
Few have found the perfect formula to do this yet, but at least they are trying (see my posts on Blogging nuns/ Tom Glocer, Impartiality in the blogging age and Why newspapers should and shouldn't blog). As always though, it takes a while for new trends and thoughts to reach these distant shores, a regrettable fact that's not helped by the widespread Norwegian attitude that Norway's ahead of the game in all areas of life and should be teaching the rest of the world how to go about things rather than the other way around.
Posted by: Kristine Lowe | December 16, 2006 at 11:22 AM