Roland Tanglao's Weblog

Here's the Knight News Challenge Question and Answer with Susan Mernit portion of the video (i missed the last few questions because I ran out of disk space, this video was 800MB!). I think it answers a lot of the common questions and shows how Susan is an engaging, articulate and savvy person.

Read the whole thing from Richard to explore some possible Vancouver applications to the Knight News Challenge. And if you couldn't make last night's meetup last night, after the jump I have embedded a cameraphone video recording of Susan's Knight News Challenge presentation below. Susan's a really great speaker (so my video doesn't do her justice) and really articulated the program well and made me want to apply or at least jot some ideas on the Knight Vancouver wiki page.

QUOTE [From Just a Gwai Lo | Knight Foundation's News Challenge: What Project Would You Like to See About Vancouver? ]

Last night I attended a presentation by Susan Mernit (Twitter) about the Knight News Challenge, an initiative by the Knight Foundation to promote democracy and discourse through innovative digital (and social) media projects.

END QUOTE

Bloggers / instant journalists / citizen journalists whatever you want to call us are a complementary force to established media. I and increasingly others (especially those who want the "real story" who are usually the "influencers") don't care what platform you use (newspaper, radio, tv, blog, videoblog, podcast, etc) as long what you are writing is accurate, authentic and timely. Unfortunately for the established media, when it comes to technology (especially in Canada!) the real story is more often than not on the blogs since the established media often doesn't have the authenticity, accuracy and timeliness.

FROM VoIP Watch: Creative Video Blogging and The New "Instant Journalism":

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On the human, um Public level, this also means, the usually dismissive approach many old school PR people have taken of bloggers and online journalists will have to change. Heck it better. Bloggers are now as important to the established companies as the mainstream media have always been, not just to the new and emerging companies with something new to show. As a matter of fact if you have to pick between the analyst, media or blogger this week, unfortunately the analyst drops to third in importance if you've got something to tell and sell. Candidly some media types who are not on deadline should take a page out of the sportswriters creed and code of mutual respect...photographers and those on deadline to the front of the pack, everyone else to the back.

I'll be at CES this week along with clients Nokia, TalkPlus, ATS, SightSpeed and NextAlarm all of which are on site either in their own booths, or in partner booths or both. There will also be private suites and private show rooms scattered around Las Veags making a portable GPS a dream come true. At media events I have my press badge and as a member of the instant journalism world hopefully at the front of the pack, not at the back of the room.

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Here's my (very biased :-) !) notes, tips and links from Monday May 15th's HTCE What "What Citizen Journalism Means to Corporate Communications" panel with Darren, Tod and Kris:

• Other event photos and Roland's N70 videos uploaded in real time over the mobile phone network via ShoZu.
• Hey Nokia and Fido as Kris suggested, how about offering an "affordable unlimited data plan for bloggers" perhaps in conjunction with the existing Nokia bloggers relations program bundled with high end Nokia cameraphones like the forthcoming N93. Bloggers are influencers for others who buy phones and by offering them this, you'll get lots of free online PR and some great feedback on your cameraphones' video and photo features.
• Other Vancouver based citizen journalism experts (apologies to those I leave out) who not only are doing "it" but get "it":
• Susan Gardner and Travis Smith of Hop Studios - J school trained, worked at real newspapers, fully versed in traditional media and blogs, videoblogs and podcasting and citizen journalism
• Michael Tippett of NowPublic - Vancouver based worldwide Citizen Journalism site where you can publish text, photos, audio and video and also request coverage of events you are interested in
• Mark Hamilton - Kwantlen College journalism instructor (who is a veteran of many community newspapers and other established media outlets) - must read his blog!
• Other links and sites to check out:
  • Urban Vancouver, Beyond Robson and Metroblogging Vancouver - some Vancouver places where citizen journalism is happening
  • PressThink - Professor Jay Rosen of NYU
  • Pomo Blog - deconstructing established media from somebody who's been there
  • BlufftonToday - one of the best citizen journalism sites on the web
  • PR is dead - well not really, but worth checking out if I do say so myself :-) !
  • Poynter Online mailing list - newspaper people moaning :-) about the current state of the established media and figuring out what comes next