Amen Brother, Preach On
Jeff Jarvis sez the media establishment doesn't "get" weblogs. And then he proves it, with a comparison of a story he wrote about weblogs for Nieman Reports, a quarterly pub produced by Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, and the same story after the blog-clueless editor got hold of it. Hilarious. And dead on.

Jarvis: Journalism still needs to escape its closed, think-tank think and get out there and use the tools the audience is using. They need to read what the audience is writing. They need to listen. That's what is so damned exciting about weblogs. Weblogs give you the chance to hear your audience and what they really care about - if only you are ready to listen.

I've said before that I think blogging will change journalism. Now I'm not so sure. Journalism must be willing to listen, learn and embrace change if blogging is to be allowed to rescue journalism from its current pit of declining readership and declining credibility. But traditional journalism has always been a top-down affair, where you, the audience, are supposed to shut up and listen passively as Big Journalism tells you about the things they think are important and then tell you what you should think about those things.

Grudgingly, they correct a mistake now and then - but bury the tiny corrections deep in the paper so nobody finds them. Formulaicly they publish each day a few selected and heavily edited letters from readers, to create the impression they care what readers think. But they don't. They want you to shut up and listen to them. They don't want to listen to you.

But now, increasingly, you aren't listening to them either. Good. That's healthy.

Now I believe that blogs will increasingly become journalism. Right now, most news-oriented blogs are punditry rather than reporting, though some of the better blogs do sometimes provide original reporting. I've done original reporting here, most often related to the state budget and tax debate over the last four years, digging out and reporting facts and data ahead of the mainstream media on many occasions. I suspect over time bloggers will increasingly add original reporting to their blogs to go with the large helping of punditry.

I can see a day coming when your local newspaper faces real competition from an Internet-only publication, a newsblog if you will, that carries reporting as well as commentary. It will be updated continuously as developments warrant, include digital pictures and audio and video reports created in the field by reporters on the scene and posted instantly to the newsblog via wireless Internet access. It will combine the immediacy of TV with depth of print - and, newsblogs will not face the space limitations that newspaper editors face each day, allowing newsblogs to publish offer longer, more in-depth reports more frequently. Newsblog reports will be heavily linked to source documents and materials - cyberfootnoting that will instantly enhance readers' perceptions of credibility (and put pressure on reporters to get the facts right). And it gets better. The newsblogs will allow readers to comment and interact with the writers and each other - a feature newspapers can't match. It will be cheaper to produce than a newspaper, and cheaper to distribute. And offer a much better reading experience. And as newspapers continue to see their circulation shrink, newsblogs will thrive.

If we're lucky, newsblogs won't change traditional journalism. They'll replace it.

UPDATE: Michael Williams says newsblogs need a feasible business model. He's right, of course. I sketched a proposal and posted it in the comments.