The Demand for "Explainers" and The Giant Pool of Money

Jay Rosen has written article that I could quote 1000 times.  It's called National Explainer: A Job for Journalists on the Demand Side of News.  It focuses on the huge success of an episode of "This American Life" called The Giant Pool of Money, which serves to explain the US mortgage crisis.

This episode has been downloaded 50,000 times more than any other episide.  Why?  Because the producers (Ira Glass and Alex Blumberg) focused on explanation instead of information.

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Your Neighborhood Needs Instant Journalists

Even though the Web makes us all feel like citizens of the world, what matters is often local.  Our neighborhoods and neighbors have a huge impact.  There is a brand-new platform, created by Instivate, a company run by one of our long-time friends and neighbors, that aims to give every neighborhood a site for sharing local news. It's called Instant Journalist.

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Dave Sifry and a Snapshot of Changing Perception

Sifry's Alerts: Media Frenzy

I thought this was great. Dave Sifry (founder of Technorati) is at the DNC conference and observed this happen:

Just had a few of the journalists present yell into the blogger group, asking, "Hey, does anyone know Kerry's Secret Service codename?" Through the looking glass.

It could happen among traditional jouranlists too, but I thought this could be a snapshot of changing perceptions in action.

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