What Alex Beam missed

Published Aug 25 2009, 11:29 AM by Adam Reilly

Like the Globe's Alex Beam, I'm not entirely convinced that the new Huffington Post-Facebook partnership represents the "future of journalism." But in his run-down of former "future of journalism" nominees that failed, Beam takes his curmudgeonly shtick a bit too far.

Here's the problematic quote in question:

I suppose civic journalism has morphed into laughable "citizens" journalism, where random jokers point their cellphones at news events and dilate accordingly. Did you follow the Huffington Post's inane "citizen ground level campaign coverage" feature "Off the Bus" last year? Don't feel bad; no one else did either.

Kind of makes you wonder if Beam knows about Mayhill Fowler, doesn't it?

One more gripe: Beam approvingly quotes the late Michael Kelly's contention that "civic journalism" is premised on a "fraud"--namely, that "a self-selected group of reporters and editors somehow could or should determine the fit subjects for debate in an election." Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't that exactly what the nation's professional political journalists do year in, year out?

Filed Under: Boston Globe, Alex Beam, facebook, civic journalism, citizen journalism

Slow communication: could it be a movement?

RIP, Don Hewitt

2 Comments

GoldfarbAndy said:

The news industry is changing rapidly, and this article and others are creating a lot of discussion about it. Check out www.colby.edu/lovejoy to read the blog. It's quite thought-provoking.

August 27, 2009 7:22 PM

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What Alex Beam missed

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