Embracing the new media (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the Twitterverse)
Should we stop worrying about the Iranian nuclear program now?
Rodeo of I Love Money Has the Hat, Muscles and the Laugh to go all the way!
Is New Media poised to take over the entertainment industry?
2012-the end or the new beginning?
Yesterday I reported that the New Zealand Press Association is closing its doors after over 130 years. So goes a staple of the old media. I got most of my information from the website of 3News, the country's main evening news programme, though when it came to the quote from Matthew Dentith, I asked him on Twitter.
Twitter soon provided me with an answer to another question, in my article I had quoted journalism lecturer Jim Tully; “NZPA maintains a presence in Parliament. ... Now, if NZPA doesn’t have a presence who is going to maintain that more mundane coverage,” The answer came when the anonymous blogger behind No Right Turn tweeted “is anyone else having trouble with the parliamentary video feed?”
Of course, if there is one person in the country who actually watches parliament live its this guy. And the country is lucky to have him, his use of parliamentary debates and official information act requests has led to him breaking a number of stories, such the organisations that are using prison labour, and the fact that ACT party MP's had missed a number of votes, including the votes for the 2008 budget.
When the parliamentary video broadcast began in 2007, I wrote that it could serve a useful purpose for bloggers and the new media. Its good to see that is happening, do we still need a news wire agency in the House? The country can probably live without it, for one thing the mixed member proportional system means as long as “third parties” are elected to parliament we'll have people making issues known, and No Right Turn isn't the only blogger keeping an eye on the debating chamber.
Citizen journalism alone won't be enough for the future, people blogging part time won't be able to do the sheer amount of work as a waged journalist. This doesn't mean we need 'old media' for this, a reader-supported blogger or listener-supported podcaster could do it, but unlike the US, New Zealand doesn't have a culture of donations that type of media would require, which is why we have no alternative media of the quality of Democracy Now.
The new media is coming of age, but it still has a long way to go if we are to do without the old media.
