CNN producer fired for blogging

Just a day before the CNN launched iReport Citizen journalism site, it fired a senior producer Chez pazienza for CNN’s “American Morning”. The reason: blogging.

Pazienza says the network fired him on the grounds that he violated its standards for journalists through his blog, Deus Ex Malcontent. He started his blog in may 2006 to "keep his mind sharp" while he was on a medical leave after an operation of a brain tumor.

I will not question whether the reasons for the CNN's decision were right or wrong or whether CNN's rules on employee writing were really "staggeringly vague and couldn't possibly apply to something as innocuous as a blog" as Pazienza says in his post on the end of his news career on CNN.

What would have happened if the newshouse like CNN accepted a different stand towards blogs? Do personal opinions of its staff really pose such a big threat to them?

Pazienza writes in its blog:

CNN fired me, and did it without even a thought to the power that I might wield as an average person with a brain, a computer, and an audience. The mainstream media doesn't believe that new media can embarrass them, hurt them or generally hold them accountable in any way, and they've never and they've never been more wrong.

In one of the previous posts I wrote: "It is interesting to see how traditional media is more and more prone to citizen journalism. But are they really open to ‘do it yourself’ media or do they just have to embrace them in order to keep and gain new audience?"

Is the answer still necessary?

Attention over information

With the ever growing number of social networking sites we can see that with the web 2.0 the information is no longer the most important. What stands out today is the attention economy and the attention is the commodity that all the important players in the internet business fight for.

With the constant growth of online media, blogs, news, videos, photos, podcasts we become sunken in the number of information we can no longer follow. Attention becomes the most scarce commodity which bring us to Herbert Simon, who was (according to Wikipedia) perhaps the first person to articulate the concept of attention economics:

“…wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

The truth is that new startups will have to put much more effort to be recognized and accepted or even noticed than ever before. Big virtual communities or social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace … can be of a great help by recognizing new applications, blogs, media… Highly connected people are today probably much more valuable than an individual.

At trying new platforms taking into account the user/customer is necessary. Almost every demographic group is somehow present on the internet these days, and users are getting smarter about their tools.

It is good to know who's doing what in social media. Forrester provides a nice graphical representation:

CNN lets the community decide what news is

Yesterday CNN launched a fully user generated website with turning iReport to the community and launching iReport.com. The website is fully dedicated to citizen journalism.

CNN launched iReport initiative in 2006 and with its help according to Mediaweek received nearly 100.000 news-related photos and videos from viewers, including nearly 10.000 this past January alone. Less than 10% of the those submissions have appeared on CNN.com or the cable channel.

The site is open to all users to upload whatever content they choose apart from obscene, hateful and copyrighted material. The content on iReport is unedited and unfiltered, but users also have the power to flag the content for review by moderators if they find it inappropriate.

It is interesting to see how traditional media is more and more prone to citizen journalism. But are they really open to ‘do it yourself’ media or do they just have to embrace them in order to keep and gain new audience?

Life Online is what YOU make of IT

Another Safer Internet Day is marked worldwide today, which is organised by Insafe, a network of 23 organizations in 21 countries and is aimed at children and younger internet users. This year’s theme is “Life online is what YOU make of IT”. Its goal is to help young people better understand the impact that the internet can have on their lives, both positively and negatively.

I think it’s important to stress that Internet hat both sides – positive as well as negative and that all depends on me, you … the way I use it. As the Internet can not have the negative or positive connotation per se. It derives only from the use of it

As the years before also this year children and young people were invited to participate in the competition with projects answering questions like: Is the internet a positive or negative element in today’s world? Are mobile phones only about “connecting people”? Can we believe everything we see on the internet? Do we behave differently online than in the “physical” world? How does our behaviour impact on the online environment?

Each year a series of events are run to promote safer use of the internet and one of them is the worldwide “blogathon” where postings and comments are encouraged from visitors, children, schools, parents... This year takes place another blogathon, based on this year’s theme “Life online is what YOU make of IT”.

We can see blogathon an example of incidental citizen practise, public that has been formed temporarily with one objective: to reflect on the same topic that is important for them and the society.

Fancy a chat? Make your own chatrom!

During the Digital Studies course we have tried several tools for online collaboration. This one may not be as usefull as Adobe Connect, but can provide a quick and easy tool to chat... especially if not all in the group share the same IM tool.

With Chatmaker you can create a disposable chat room with a single click. All you have to do is to choose a name for the chatroom and click 'Go'. Once chat room is created you can invite others by sending them a direct link. And the best is - there's no need for registration.