Censoring Free Media (Or... Fighting Letters to the Editor)

I read two daily newspapers. I know the world is moving away from printed media, and this admission marks me as a bit of a dinosaur - but there are all kinds of interesting parallels between the newspaper industry and the software industry. Both are undergoing tremendous change, creating havoc for some and opportunity for others. The industries have much in common - minimally, they're both rooted in creative writers (journalists and developers). Traditional newspapers publish content produced by their employees. Writers and journalists have degrees and credentials, even awards for quality and integrity, like the Pulitzer Prize. To the extent editors allow the unwashed masses to contribute content to their publications, they host "Letters to the Editor," typically limited to a single page, and heavily filtered. Non-professionals can apply for longer opinion or "OpEd" pieces, but those column inches are more frequently reserved for former prime ministers or (former) world bank presidents. Simplisitically, in the world of traditional print media, >99% of the content comes from employees, less than 1% comes from the community they serve. The editor is in control. On the other end of the spectrum, a variety of on-line media companies, exemplified by Craigslist or YouTube or Lokalisten, aggregate and organize content produced by the global community. This content is (poorly) known as "User Generated Content," or UGC, and the companies distributin...

Date: May, 21 2007
Url: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/censoring_free_media_or_fighting

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