Individual digital connectivity has tapped what I call the "distributed genius" of human beings, in a way print rarely did (a letter to the editor won't appear for days) and electronic media -- such as radio with talk shows taking phone calls -- only began to explore.
In the early 1990s, I used "distributed genius" to describe an email "listserve" group I joined that included a number of military reservists, a retired Marine, a military historian and at least two men on active duty. The members lived around the globe. Ask for advice on a military issue and -- presto -- feedback from an articulate pro who had been there and done it.
Some old media organizations and a few new ones fear "distributed genius." Four years ago, September 2004, distributed genius brought down Dan Rather and gave CBS a black eye.
Three attorneys, a mathematically gifted guitar player and an Atlanta attorney with expertise in script fonts (posting at freerepublic.com under the name "Buckhead") exposed Rather's "Air National Guard documents" story on "Sixty Minutes" as fakes. Credit Time Magazine for at least detecting the seismic significance -- Time declared Powerline "blog of the year."
What comes next? For a decade, everyone has been searching for a new media model, and the model matters, for it takes informed citizens to make a democracy work. Informed citizens require facts, and that means good reporting -- informative journalism with integrity.
"Convergence Media" has appeared -- text, audio and video, providing information in a medium most convenient to the user. Moreover, the technology is available to talented, creative individuals operating in agile, cooperative organizations that have minimized or eliminated the Industrial Age overhead strangling many companies, like high-rent offices and network contracts paying millions to hairdos who read teleprompters.
But the trillion-dollar question has not quite been answered: How do you make enough money to support the investigative reporter who is just looking for the facts, ma'am? |