 |
|
|
| |
Shine a Light: Bloggers & First Amendment Conference
|
1845 Reads
|
|
|
|
| |
 If you're a blogger, a traditional journalist or just a friend of the First Amendment that protects and empowers both, take a good look at the program for this weekend's confab in Orange County on public and press access to the government:
Mark Felt, Floyd Abrams and Dan Gillmor are just a few of the Very Big Names staking up the big tent of the California First Amendment Coalition's 10th annual open-government conference, to be held at Cal State Fullerton on Friday and Saturday.
The conference will explore sunshine laws, confidential sources, court access and ... blogging.
I'll have the honor of joining Gillmor and Kevin Roderick on a panel Saturday morning to discuss the growing power, responsibility and vulnerability of bloggers. Here are the details:
|
|
10:30-11:45 a.m.
Panel discussion: Blogging: a new journalistic form, or barbarians at the gates?
This panel, which will include pioneer bloggers and today's leading practitioners of the blog, will consider blogging's considerable power to influence the mainstream political agenda-propelling, for example, Howard Dean's ascent and Dan Rather's decline. Panelists will debate whether blogging is the paradigm of Madison's "marketplace of ideas," or a chaotic street bazaar in which truth is drowned out by hawkers of rumor and invective. Other issues to be considered: is blogging a "fifth estate," necessary to hold the mainstream media accountable? Panelists also will discuss blogging's relation to the "new journalism" of an earlier era, the legal protections-or lack thereof-of blogging, with a focus on Apple Computer's suit to force bloggers in Massachusetts and California to disclose confidential sources. In addition, panelists will explore ideas for incorporating aspects of blogging into newspapers and other traditional news formats.
Panelists
Dan Gillmor, author & blogger
Mack Reed, LAVoice.org
Kevin Roderick, LAObserved.com
Moderator
Kevin S. Bankston, Electronic Frontier Foundation Just a couple of thoughts in advance: Whoever said "With great power comes great responsibility" wasn't a blogger.
On one hand, bloggers shine light on main-stream media bias, report vital news that the MSM can't be bothered with and provide a living prism through which society gets an undiluted look at itself - and a chance to argue back and be heard.
On the other, bloggers distort facts, push opinion as truth, ridicule dissenters and generally wield the sacred and formidable power of the press as a blunt instrument for bludgeoning political foes and inflating their own self-worth.
On the one hand, the blogosphere is, indeed, a"fifth estate" or, more accurately, a sounding board for skepticism and public opinion that runs counter to the MSM-generated "common wisdom" guiding our votes and, thus, our government.
On the other - while it is a powerful, established medium with massive political oomph - the blogosphere is also 19 million points of very dim light - a roiling, primordial mosh pit populated by geniuses, demagogues, shoegazers, fringe-dancers, soccer moms, political hatchet-men and certifiable loons.
Hi, my name is Mack, and I am a blogger. ("Hi, Mack ...") .
Come check out the panel - and the rest of the conference. It should be stimulating.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Posted by: Mack_Reed on Monday, October 10, 2005 - 10:51 PM
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
