Disappeared News: Bloggers to be credited as news sources by the AP, and a video worth 10,000 words

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Bloggers to be credited as news sources by the AP, and a video worth 10,000 words

by Larry Geller

Last week the Associated Press released a new set of guidelines for attribution. Probably for the first time, blogs or bloggers (it’s not clear which) can be credited in stories that will appear locally to the blogger and of course nationally and internationally.

Attributing facts we haven’t gathered or confirmed on our own:
We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it’s U.S. based; and whether or not it's an AP member or subscriber.

This is a positive development. Blogs have a lot to contribute, and getting credit for their work encourages bloggers. In turn, if there is to be some sort of new age of cooperation between online and traditional media, this could be an important part of it.

Perhaps one day the AP will go farther and link to online news sources. Bloggers regularly do this. True, the online world is very different from print media, which is where AP’s members are largely stuck. They can’t embed a video (as I am about to do), and they aren’t willing to introduce readers to other websites that might interest them (as I enjoy doing and will do again in a moment).

Ok, here’s your embedded video. I thought this was much better than the numerous stories I’ve read on the recession, jobs and unemployment. Click on the little thingy in the lower right for a full-screen experience. Sorry, AP, to leave you in the dust, but print can’t embed video quite yet. After the clip will be the reference to one cool site—the blog where this video came from.

This video came from The Political Carnival blog, where they solicit videos for their Blunt project (“Wanna be blunt?”)

Blunt is a lot like letters to the editor. YOUR take, short, to the point.

This is one more way to be heard. We’re grassrootsy like that.

Perhaps part of the appeal of the Tea Party movement is that they want to be blunt. There’s something in wanting to shout out what bugs you. Not that I’d encourage Tea Parties or the bigotry and hatred that they bring to the tea table, but I do think that outrage wants to be channeled. People want to express themselves and they want to be effective.

So the idea of short, home-made videos intrigues me. Perhaps we can do something like that for local Hawaii issues.

That’s the kind of contribution blogs can make.

And sorry, AP, if a picture is worth 1,000 words, don’t you think the video above is worth at least 10,000 words? I’m glad you’ll be giving us credit (I hope), and look forward to some kind of traditional/non-traditional cooperation in the future. Who knows what will happen. The potential is here.