Thursday, June 11, 2009

Nothing here happened today

Jason Jones visits the lady

But see Jay/Dave:

The New York Times has a neighborhood blogging experiment, The Local. This week it extended an invitation to users: be the journalist. "Here is your first assignment: We're looking for someone to go to the 88th Precinct Community Council meeting next Wednesday, the 10th."


A progression? See Mr. Cubeta:

The development of professionals in this field of fields goes like this:

  1. Diffident ignorance.
  2. Confident siloed expertise, blind and deaf to disciplines beyond the specialist's own.
  3. Panic and dread at being exposed to one's own ignorance of all but a narrow band of knowledge.
  4. Disdain and contempt for "the dark side," or the "touchy feely types," or "the mixed motives sorts."
  5. A growing set of friendships across the sectors
  6. Humilty and graciousness; a sense of appreciation for what others bring to the table.
  7. Team play.
  8. World changing results.

The Times has been at #4 for a while. Is the jocularity and call to neighborhoods a sign of moving past that, or merely another effort to market the seeming of that?

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3 Comments:

Anonymous Radon Crimp said...

"Exploitation" in irony quotes?

Blog stringers. The Times has always depended on stringers, "freelance" employees who:

are passionate about writing and journalism

work 70 hour weeks but get paid by the word

work in Times HQ, reporting and editing, with bylines, year after year, but are not employees with health benefits, pensions, unemployment, workers comp...

Show up at and report local meetings just like wid this "new" blogging invite.

Because it involves "blogging" this is somehow a step forward. Because now they don't even get paid? And they have to compete in an electronic cattle call for the right to cover a story?

Big step forward.

6/11/2009 9:09 PM  
Blogger Tom Matrullo said...

Not quite so - it's in a separate post focused on the possibility of moving beyond the somewhat stale binary of exploitative use vs. "authentic labor" as legitimated by capital. Did not have the "big chance" of the Times in view.

6/11/2009 11:13 PM  
Blogger jonhusband said...

Your question is interesting. It was inevitable, and may still be.

6/15/2009 2:06 AM  

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