It’s why I used to love a healthy newsroom, which I have described as a magical place where everyone disagrees with everything all of the time.  Arguments make the work better; when people stop arguing, or at least arguing intelligently, absent the usual half-assed, rhetorical cheating, the work invariably suffers.

(Source: davidsimon.com)

Photo credit: Adam Crowe

Like many other industries, journalism has undergone a vast paradigm shift in the last decade. Like advertising, the music and film industries, marketing, public relations and virtually all other professional fields, journalism has had to adjust to a new “immediacy” brought about by the Internet.

Now, by all reports, most people get their news from online sources and, while “online sources” are often venerable traditional media sources like the New York Times and the Washington Post, more often than not, blogs have become major sources of breaking news, and exclusive reports.

In fact, it was Pakistani IT specialist Sohaib Athar, now more famously known by his Twitter handle @reallyvirtual, who unwittingly live-tweeted the Osama bin Laden raid while Libyan rebels send on the ground status updates where traditional journalists have limited or no access. (Andy Carvin of NPR, known as @acarvin on Twitter,  has become somewhat notorious for his months-long curation of such tweets out of Libya, Egypt, Yemen and other Middle East hotspots).

There is no denying that the social tools available today have changed the face of journalism. Yet, despite these boons, it troubles me that basic principles of journalism seem to be consistently ignored.

At the end of the day, the practice of journalism (as with any industry) will evolve (and always have) with the tools and technology of the day. However, though practices may change, principles should never change.

One such principle is fact-checking. No matter who you are, or what era you’re in, fact-checking is rule number one in journalism. Don’t report until you have three independent sources is a good rule of thumb that is often ignored.

Case in point. The Wall Street Journal‘s All things D[igital] posted an article the other day titled, “Confirmed: Twitter Plans to Announce Photo-sharing Service This Week“. By all accounts, and history bearing witness, All Things D has been a reliable source of technology news since it’s inception. Founded by media moguls Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, it later became part of the WSJ family and has maintained a high level of journalistic integrity and excellence for years.

But something troubles me about this article. With a headline like this, it seems strange that this paragraph would then be included in the article:

I am indeed aware that D9 is the conference put on by this very site, but was not able to get sources to confirm the image-hosting announcement on the record. Twitter spokespeople did not reply for a request for comment on the matter.

Of course, the news did in fact turn out to be a true story and Twitter did announce on their official blog that they would be partnering with Photobucket to offer an image hosting service.

Notwithstanding, everyone seems to agree that this play has been a foregone conclusion for a long time. And TechCrunch did write a story speculating on the service. But even in that news announcement, there was no real substance with Alexis Tsotsis concluding the article with:

I’ve got no details on what exactly the photosharing URL shortener will be if any (Twitter has owned Twimg.com for a long time) or what the Twitter for Photos product will look like. Just that it’s coming, soon. And if they’re smart they’ll put ads on it.

No sourcing. No fact checking. No confirmation.

While the need for speed is certainly required in today’s immediate, persistent news cycles, it bothers me that articles are being written claiming confirmation when no confirmation exists and that articles are being written from a speculative perspective (no issues there, just call it that!) and being held up as fact.

Though the Twitter news ended up being accurate, I plead with All Things D and all other internet publications to do yourselves and the public a service and stay the main tenets of journalism. Respect is at stake.

For the hard of eyesight (it’s small), let me transcribe this fascinating editorial from editor Abigail Albair:

As a reporter I try to keep my opinions to myself, but as an editor who has in recent weeks observed a disturbing trend in journalism, I feel compelled to come out from behind my computer screen and speak out.

Some of our fellow Connecticut newspapers and news websites have developed a tendency toward an over-involvement of the public in their work. You, our readers are of incredible importance to us and we welcome your story suggestions and your thoughts and opinions on our work and the subject matter which we present to you. Just as we respect your suggestions and comments, we hope you equally respect our ability to do our jobs.

There is a local and arguably national trend developing of publications giving readers the chance to roam newsroom floors and offer tips and guidance on not just what we write, but how it is written. As your local newspaper, we will always welcome suggestions from our readers to allow us to grow and transform. If you have a suggestion to offer, we welcome it, though there is a time and place for it.

In most cases, no one committed to a craft is comfortable with an outsider, with none of the training they’ve had, to successfully do their job, sitting over their shoulder critiquing every move. Everyone needs some perspective and guidance at times, but the fact that other organizations are inviting this into their newsroom on a daily basis suggests to me that they have lost all faith in themselves to adequately fulfill their obligations to the public.

In too many cases, readers are being told at the conclusion of each story printed that what you may have just spent three minutes of your life reading could have contained factual inaccuracies because “everyone makes mistakes.” It is our goal for you to never need to submit “corrections” to this publication, and we find it troubling that other publications would call on the editing skills of their readers.

We hope you will choose us as your newspaper and trust our employees to do their job for you, not the other way around. Truth in journalism is a core principle for those of us who have chosen this profession. It is our objective to offer that to you every day.

It will always be a part of our mission to be approachable. We do welcome feedback from readers, as well as suggestions. We do welcome feedback from readers, as well as suggestions. You can be the source of some of our best topics, but there always come a point where we can “take it from here.” Our staff is dedicated to producing quality journalism whenever a story reaches print.

It is upsetting that some news sources are eager to turn to gimmicks rather than solid, old-fashioned reporting and hard work to sell their product. We are eager, as well, to make you part of our product by reporting on the events in your lives. To that end we pledge to stay plugged into happenings of our communities.

We believe in what we do. We hope we have proven to you that you can believe in us too.

-Abigail Albair, Editor

First of all, apologies to the Valley News for the entire reprint. I could not find it in your online archives so please feel free to link me in comments and I will excerpt for Fair Use.

Now to the heart of the matter… I can see that Ms. Albair is clearly an intelligent woman. According to LinkedIn, she is Co-Editor in Chief at a newspaper less than two years after she graduated Wagner College. Her credentials are strong for being so young and inexperienced. And I mean that kindly.

It’s no secret that I don’t have a degree, much less a journalism degree. I’ve made it to the point of my success through hard work, ambition and going after what I want. However, I don’t think of my self as less-competent than others in my industry who have graduated with Engineering degrees from MIT or Carnegie Mellon.

Ms. Albair’s denigrating look at the public is less than becoming. While I respect anyone with a craft and their ability to do it, we do not live in a vacuum and, in fact, attempting to live in one lacks accountability. The Third Estate has every right to critique the Fourth Estate and absolution of that right, not only empowers an irresponsible press, but abdicates our responsibility to give and receive meaningful input.

The timeline for that abdication of responsibility by the public follows a path like this:

• Newspaper prints inaccurate story
• Public accepts story without question
• Fallout from inaccurate public perception ensues

This is never more appalling than when self-proclaimed news agency, Fox News, implants biased stories with no real objectivity, into the minds of a significant portion of American culture. Because the public questions, there is a “check” in place to cause doubt. But so many others take their “reporting” at face value.

But I don’t want to descend into politics.

Input from the public is very important in 2011. Would we know anything about the coup in Tunisia if it wasn’t for “citizen journalists”? Would we have eyes on the ground in New York City when US Airways 1549 crashed in the Hudson River?

No, Ms Albair. We wouldn’t. While the angst you portray is proper in many respects, the problem is not as you describe. The problem is not public input into your precious protectorate. The problem is editorial oversight. There needs to be more editorial oversight to prevent CNN iReporters from inaccurately reporting Steve Jobs having a heart attack and causing Apple stocks to sell off like wild.

Your job, Ms. Albair, is of utmost importance, because you hold the power to appropriately filter information to the general public. We need more of you. Not less of us. You need more of us because, with your budget shortfalls and attrition in the ranks of fine journalists due to the economy and woo of the internet, you need boots on the ground. You need the general public being your eyes and ears and feeding information into your newsroom. Not the other way around.

But I can see how you see more editorial need being a threat to your job. Not everyone can have an Editor-in-Chief title having graduated Wagner College in 2009. Not everyone. Only the elite.

Wired has a pretty good article about the FCC launching a new competition to develop apps that would allow consumers to “spy” on their mobile carriers to ensure that the carriers are not throttling or limiting bandwidth and services. This is important in the Net Neutrality debate, for sure, but let me point out something that just sits entirely wrong with my journalistic mind.

Author Ryan Singel does a very good job describing the situation, reporting the facts and injecting very mild bias (I’m okay with that) into his post. Then he gets to the last line of the second to last paragraph (bolded mine):

Hackers and thinkers have until June 1 to submit their work. Both a jury of experts and the public will get to decide the winners, who, as a prize, get to visit D.C. on the FCC’s dime and eat at a banquet with FCC head Julius Genachowski — if he’s not been eaten alive by then by the ascendant Republican congress for imposing rules on the nation’s powerful telecom companies.

Whaaa? Did I miss the point in the article where Wired moved from describing an entirely appropriate tech policy story to angsty political hyperbole? Credibility lost. Try again.

It’s been a fascinating, and illuminating, charade. As the fourth estate, the media would like to portray themselves as an unbiased, objective entity that maintains balance in society. Yet, inherently, the media is just as guilty of self-interest as anyone else in this whole mess.

Yes, the State Department specifically, and the United States (and maybe other) governments would like to keep the lid on the memos. They see their credibility in talking with other nations on the line.

Julian Assange sees this, as pointed out in the great piece by zunguzungu, where Assange is quoted as saying:

Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self-realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.

Assange sees a world where transparent and open government subvert the power and authority of the same government and so there is a natural tendency (he calls it conspiracy) to hide what happens inside.

I agree that this dichotomy exists in some areas of government, but the diplomatic cables are common sense – for all involved. Keep them hidden as there is a potential that revelation can increase safety risks, decrease operational security and reduce negotiation power. Successful negotiations derive from a position of power and everyone knows this. This is not something that amounts to some great conspiracy.

Meanwhile, the media is on the sideline, their power usurped from this rogue operative with a rogue website. Instead of the New York Times or Washington Post benefitting from the receipt of leaked information as has been the case in their traditional past (see Watergate), an upstart “news organization” is stealing their thunder. Sure the Times and a variety of other media outlets were given the data eventually, but the arbiter of information was no longer them.

While the media wrings their hands over a contrived battle between the morality of publishing leaked, national security documents and preservation of national secrets, the bigger capitalistic battle is happening and that overshadows journalistic sense of responsibility.

The ability to be first is being tainted here. While Wikileaks promises to distribute new information, acting as a benevolent dictator, to news organizations, these news organizations are capitulating their responsibilities simply to make sure they have some crumbs off of Assange’s table.

No one, certainly, is suggesting that news outlets should become a lap-dog, as I have heard toss around, of the government, bowing to their every will and whim. Certainly not, lest we live in a Communist system. However, the media is expected to operate in a suitably responsible way.

In this case, the media knows that they are on the outs. In a last gasp of industry-pride, they have sacrificed themselves in a last-ditch effort to remain relevant. Put in another way, they have come to serve themselves instead of the people they exist to serve.

Of course, this hasn’t happened overnight. No, in fact, many years of budget cuts, acquisitions, mergers and staff reductions have caused the media industry to alter how they operate and approach stories. It’s less likely that you’ll have a Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein hitting the trenches to uncover a conspiracy so deep that it reaches the President of the United States. No, that would require far more time and resources – and frankly, better reporters – than exist in todays media.

So with not a thought to their forefathers, the media of the 21st century makes decisions of national security to protect their own industry than serve the constituents who consume their journalism everyday. I wish it weren’t so.

Photo by Photoserra

I care less about the AP Style Guide and more about engaging content. I care less about J-school degrees and more about thoughtful and provocative prose with a dedication to facts. I care less about conglomerate media organizations and more about the reporters, writers and personalities who make up CNN and the New York Times of the world.

I am just a blogger. I have been writing for over six years and I’ve swung from the “new media will kill old media” mode to “new media and traditional (I don’t call it old anymore) media” have a place together. Still, many bloggers (and social media people as a whole) get locked in an us and them struggle with their traditional peers. We see it in the music industry, in access to sports, in public relations and marketing, etc. Everyone loves the us vs. them argument.

Here’s the dirty little secret though: Without ‘them’, there is no ‘us’ and without ‘us’ there is no ‘them’. We are married together for the future of the industry forever. And that goes for all industries where these conversations happen.

What really is happening is a separation of the power brokers from the base of power. In other words, in public relations, professionals at the agencies go about their mindless drone job of push, push, push without ever really talking, tracking, monitoring or engaging the demographic they are trying to reach.

In the NFL, for years the clubs engaged in tactics with bloggers that delegitimized the coverage they were receiving and, in fact, the public was consuming… only because bloggers typically didn’t write for large media organizations.

In fact, Jay Rosen, a Professor at the New York University School of Journalism (And one of the smartest, most insightful journalism critics I know of), characterized this problem on Twitter by observing how the White House Press Corps engages.

Indeed. Though one could ask why the White House Press Corps would communicate directly with the public instead of with the White House, where their job is. Nonetheless, the greater point that is being made is that Traditional media that communicates with the base of power (the citizens and customers) is generally able to perform their art in a more meaningful way.

New Media exists to bridge a gap. We will never replace traditional journalism. On the other hand, traditional journalism will never eliminate new media. The bigger question is… why would either side want to do those things at all?

Steve McNair died. Putting aside the tragedy (he was a former Raven, a hero among athletes and, by all acounts, men – NFL MVP, a warrior known to play through countless injuries, mature in his approach to life and the game), we witnessed a catastrophic failure of major media. Again.

I’m not one to crucify major media. Indeed, I may be one of the few in my industry to want to see the newspaper and other forms of traditional media succeed in a huge fashion. The problem is that, even in the days of blogs and Twitter, we still rely on major media to report the news. To do the journalism. To find the sources and produce the confirmation.

As much as we in new media claim to be journalists, major media still does the job better than most of us could hope too.

We rely on Twitter and sometimes we’re wrong. Take the example of the report that actor Jeff Goldblum had died. Highly inaccurate. Stephen Colbert even fucked around with us in new media claiming that if it happens on Twitter, it must be true.

This afternoon, Twitter was ablaze with reports that Nashville Police has found former Tennessee Titan and Baltimore Raven quarterback, Steve McNair, dead in an apparent murder suicide. WKRN, in Nashville, was the first with the news and it quickly disappeared off their page – a result of too much traffic or erroring on the side of caution, who is to really know.

NBC Affiliate WTVF, Channel 5, was the second to report it filling the gap where WKRN dropped off.

It was a long time (30 minutes or so) before national media picked it up. ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports by their own slogan, didn’t have it. No one did. We were left gasping for more. Is the rumor true? Can anyone confirm? Can police confirm?

Was any of us on Twitter making calls? Maybe. A few possibly. Not many.

Major media got a little jittery in the past. After 9/11. With other reports that turned into an overcompensation. Fact is, major media can safely report on a rumor as long as it is billed as such. No one has to say that this is confirmed. But people want to know. We get our news on the internet.

We find out about things happening in Iran via Twitter. We find out about Michael Jackson dying… on Twitter. We read blogs that deal with Sarah Palin’s awkwardly bizarre resignation at Alaska governor. We’re not watchoing your TV stations. We’re not in Nashville. Welcome to the global economy.

Report the damn news and report it as a rumor to hedge your bets. But report the news.

Photo Credit: mdu2boy

Update: Most media organizations are reporting a double homicide now, not a murder sucide. WKRV, who was first with the story, had reported a possible murder-suicide.

These are my planned opening remarks:

First of all, I want to thank NextGenWeb and the DCI Group for inviting me to be with you today. I want to thank all of you for taking time out of your Friday morning to be here as well.

We have a lot to talk about today because, frankly, the landscape of news, reporting, politics and effective organizing isn’t changing. It already has changed.

comScore, the metrics organization that measures website popularity and user engagement and leads the industry in much the same way that Nielsen has led the more traditional media rating media, reported that sites like Facebook and MySpace are owning over 100M unique visitors every month. Universal McCann, another measurement company, reports that 77% of active internet users read blogs.

Whether you agree or disagree with these numbers, and whether you like the trend or not, it is undeniable that the new media space has emerged. It is difficult to turn on your television without seeing personalities – and I do mean personalities – such as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow or CNN’s Rick Sanchez engaging their audiences with Twitter.

Up until recently, your own rules here in Congress have prevented you from effectively engaging the citizens on your districts, states and this country. You were hampered by antiquated rules that required separation of content from endorsements in the form of ads. I led the way in helping America see this, through my blog, public radio and conversation on and off the Hill. Though I cannot take full credit for any changes that have occurs, changes have still have occurred. Your House and Senate rules now allow you to utilize Twitter, YouTube and other social media avenues.

The news cycle is there and it’s different than it was before. In another lifetime, you played the game by talking to the press and hoping that they found interest in your cause. Now, you can go directly to the American people.

However, with much power comes much responsibility. Blogs have given us as citizens an expectation for engagement. For conversation. For exchange of information, ideas and transparency. Major media for the most part has not figured this out yet, and that is why more Americans get their news on the internet. There are, of course, exceptions. If you are to use this effectively, you will need to treat the internet, not as a faceless drop box where constituent mail comes from. Not as an anonymous voicemail box. Not as a nameless email inbox that sends an automated reply to the sender.

You must engage. You must converse. More importantly, you must listen.

Today, we’re going to talk about blogs, Twitter and new media. I hope that we can all learn from one another and build a better interaction platform for constituents. Thank you, again.

The question posed over at Friendfeed asks, “Are blogs killing newspapers?”

The answer, quite simply, is no they are not.

I have talked about the newspaper industry quite a lot and part directions with many others in the new media space. In a world of absolute positions staked by nearly everyone, that paint issues in stark contrasts of black and white with no grey in between, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that if blogs are successful over newspapers in some area, then they must be killing the newspaper across the board.

In my old age of nearly 33, I’ve learned something in this life. That absolutes are generally far from absolute. The passion that is put forward by belief in something is enough to cause issue-oriented myopia, wherein it is impossible to consider other possible alternatives.

Thus is the case when the question is posed, “Are blogs killing newspapers?”

Let me pose both sides of the argument.

After the election, Republicans were looking for some kind of reason to understand their loss. Democrats? Well they were happy to pile on anyone around and gloat about it. The media willingly became accomplices to any story that made sense. Bloggers? Reckless.

Such was evidenced by the appearance of Fox News political analyst Carl Cameron on The O’Reilly Factor where, of note, Bill O’Reilly appeared to be the pundit showing some restraint while Cameron nearly jumped through the television exclaiming amazing “facts” about Sarah Palin and “Senior McCain Advisers” throwing her under the bus. Some of these “facts” that came out, according to unnamed and uncorroborated McCain sources, included the juicy bit about Palin not actually knowing that “Africa was a continent” and the report that “South Africa was just the southern part of the country of Africa”.

The New York Times explains that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax taken in and spread by traditional media and exacerbated by bloggers who didn’t fact check or question the claims.

Let me break away from the reporting of facts here to explain a few significant truths.

1. Believable lies have Truthiness.
2. People tend to believe that which reinforces their expectations.
3. Modern Day journalism is about being first, not being right.
4. Bloggers are journalists too. Some of them suck though, just as some journalists suck.
5. Trust yet verify.

Believable lies have Truthiness.

Reading the story from the Times, it is obvious to me that the hoax was easily playable because there was some cause to believe that Palin may have caused some significant problems internally for the McCain campaign. In fact, the hoax may be even more playable because there may be very verifiable claims in there (I don’t know, I’m just saying).

In essence, if the premise of argument is not verifiable truth, then it is supposed truth (or truthiness, in the words of Stephen Colbert) and supposed truth is shaky ground (e.g. if 1 multiplied by 0 equals 0, and 2 multiplied by 0 equals 0, then 1 must equal 2). Believable lies are built entirely on truthiness.

People tend to believe that which reinforces their expectations

The only explanation for a two-party system in America, from the perspective of non-Washington party elites, is to provide Americans a set of beliefs where they can buy in unequivocally to one party or another. Never was that seen more clearly than in this election where the political machine painted both candidates in certain ways and supporters, in some cases, nearly were sent into a frenzy over those expectations.

Ideas that Obama had terrorist ties were planted, stirred and we saw it at McCain rallies. Ideas that McCain was misogynistic were often bandied around by feminists and accented by stories about names that he would call his wife.

See, people tend to latch onto the evidence that supports their worldview. Palin was so vilified as being stupid that a Carl Cameron report, without verifiable evidence, implicating Palin as geographically awkward fit the expectations of the woman, and so was passed on as fact.

Modern Day journalism is about being first, not being right

In an era of 24 hour news cycles, news organizations (and news bloggers too) have taken the tact that it’s better to be first than right. Usually, that works out to some degree. However, there are notable instances where the information passed along as fact was incorrect,

Examples of this was the infamous “Rathergate” story, where President George Bush was implicated in a National Guard service scandal that was quickly refuted with real investigative journalism. CBS admitted they were wrong 12 days later and retracted the story.

Recently, we saw this same effect in the tech and business space when rumors were circulated that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a heart attack and Apple stock slid as a result. The rumor was later debunked and CNN, who reported the story first in the major news circuits, pulled the story back.

Bloggers are journalists too. Some of them suck though, just as some journalists suck

The ongoing debate over journalism in the blogosphere is a little tired. It’s my opinion that, regardless of credibility, research, J-school training, etc, anyone who reports “news” is a journalist. Journalists don’t get credibility from their George Washington University journalism degree, but by being right, thorough and objective. Not being right, not being thorough or being biased does not eliminate the status of “journalist” but it does affect the credibility of the journalist.

With that premise, bloggers can be journalists. In the Palin story, it seems that bloggers can be pretty shoddy journalists at that. In a marked contrast to Rathergate, where bloggers researched, fact-checked and eventually debunked the Dan Rather story as bogus, bloggers latched on to Carl Cameron’s claims of Palin stupidity. In keeping with the idea that believable lies have some elements of truth, they may have taken the report in good faith without research or simply verified some aspects of his claims and claimed truthiness on the rest of the story.

To me, reporting and disseminating reports that are partially true is as bad as reporting and disseminating blatant hoaxes. Bloggers on the right and left side of the political spectrum were guilty. Very few questioned the story on it’s merit, and those who did (like me) didn’t write our thoughts out in such a way to challenge the premises. Shame on us as well.

Trust yet verify

Reagan, whether you liked him as a President or not, had tremendous wise and insightful things to say about a wide variety of issues. One of his more famous quotes was, “Trust, yet Verify”.

I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water. There are tremendous pieces of grassroots journalism happening in the blogosphere. Stories are being broken. Questions are being raised surrounding ethics, corporate governance, technology startups, etc.

Likewise, mainstream media continues to do a “good” job in bringing the news to people (Although, for fans of The Wire, producer David Simon challenged the media because, in his opinion, the real stories are being left unreported while the less important stories get too much airtime).

For bloggers, imagine the position you would have been in if you would have stepped up to the plate and pushed back on this story. You may have gotten hateful comments from readers who want to believe that Palin is just that stupid, but at the end of the day you would have been vindicated and seen as objective, hard hitting and thoughtful.

For news producers, imagine if you would not have run with the story. You would have maintained credibility, saved yourself the embarrassment of having to print or issue a correction, and you wouldn’t have looked stupidly petty.

For readers and consumer of information, imagine if you would have stepped back and simply not believed everything that was fed to you. Imagine if you could have looked at your television or computer screens, scratched your heads and said, “Something is fishy about this story”.

The lesson here is that everyone needs to do a better job. This is not simply a free press issue. Do what you want. It is a credibility and authority issue. Fox News, already perceived as being a propaganda piece of the Republican party, decided to either be perceived as not-that mouthpiece, or played a cooperative game with a fringe of the GOP looking to protect themselves for the next election cycle and in doing so, looked even more foolish. Bloggers look like idiots and amateurs for not knowing better. Readers willingly let their feelings and opinions be used as a pawn in a much larger political game.

All I can say is be careful next time. Your credibility – all of you – is on the line.

One of the blogs I do subscribe to is Outside the Beltway which is one of the few political blogs that stuck after I stopped covering politics. Occasionally, James covers a topic that has crossover into the Technosailor market. This was one of those posts.

I still think the political space is different than the rest of the blogosphere and is a bit myopic (okay, a lot!), but there’s some great stuff. In his article, James notes that back when he began blogging in 2003(?), bloggers liked to write about blogging.

Unfortunately, it’s still that way today. Am I doing it now?

Largely, he makes a good point inadvertently, that the great blogs today are blogs that have something to say. They might be seen as “media”, depending on the niche. They might be seen as Journalists, depending on the niche. In the tech space, I’d call Gigaom a journalistic property, more than a blog. TechCrunch is largely a media organization, but I do question the journalistic legitimacy of a “publish now, correct later” site (something that Mike acknowledged in a Mesh Conference keynote last year and numerous other times as well).

I don’t want to get broiled down in the question of what is journalism and what is not? I don’t really want to discuss the “media merit” of any site, really.

More importantly, there is an evolution that takes place where a blog goes from a blog to a media property. It’s hard to tell, at least for me, what that point is. Is it when a site gets more than one author? Is it when there is a certain “rate of fire” on posts per day? Per week?

Is it pageviews and eyeballs? Is it simply a nomenclature thing where the Editor stops considering and calling the site a blog and starts referring to it as something else? Is it advertising? Is it the presence and participation in a network?

What’s the difference? Where is the line?

I think it’s obvious that some sites are “media” while others are not, but where and how does this evolution take place?

I expect other people to have different theories than I do, and that’s okay. My feeling is that it’s a combination of all of those things, but mostly it’s how the site is “sold” to readers? I see Technosailor.com, for instance, as a media property. Yes, it’s a blog? But is it?

We’ve recently refreshed the layout of the site to be more of a newspaper look, thanks to a large degree of influence from Huffington Post and The New York Times – both significant, and undeniable, “media outlets”.

Is that enough though? Probably not.

I’ve also hired other writers and contributors with an eye on hiring more as I’m able to recoup costs via advertising and other sponsorship. This is another ingredient, or at least that’s what Google News believes, since it does not accept any sources that don’t have multiple authors.

What’s the difference? Where is the evolutionary point?