The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative is seeking to create an international safe haven for journalism. it's an amazing project that could have an international ripple effect on journalism.

On July 9, the following article appeared on the Reuter's blog:

A is for abattoir; Z is for ZULU: All in the Handbook of Journalism

It's pretty good news for journalists -- aspiring, existing or otherwise -- who are serious about their craft.

The handbook includes

sections on standards and values; a guide to operations; a sports style guide and a section of specialised guidance on such issues as personal investments by journalists, dealing with threats and complaints and reporting information found on the internet.

Why are they doing this? Apparently, for several reasons that are listed within the article:

Among them:

• Transparency: At a time when trust is an endangered commodity in the financial and media worlds, it’s important that news consumers see the guidelines our journalists follow.
  
• Service: As we’ve seen over the past decade, the barriers to publishing have dropped so that anyone with an idea and a computer can be a publisher. But it’s also become clear that publishers have a varying standard of truth, fairness and style. Our handbook is a good place for budding journalists to begin.
  
• Geography: Reuters serves a global audience and the handbook recognises the cultural and political differences that our journalists face in reporting for the world. This is a handbook not just for English-language journalists in the United Kingdom or the United States, but for wherever English is used.

That's good enough for me.  ePluribus Media has, since its inception, provided a section called the Citizen Journalism Toolbox; coupled with the Reuters Handbook of Journalism, there are now some pretty hefty weapons in the online arsenal for citizen journalists, bloggers, teachers, hobbyists, students and the public at large.

The game is changing; online interaction and information exchange is constantly evolving, and by finding as well as adhering to a set of standards that help us communicate effectively, the public "power of the people" to share information and stay informed in a world awash in propaganda and spin has just taken another step forward.

Thanks, Reuters.

Via Parade and Reuters, this interesting tidbit:

__________

Standing in front of a seemingly empty, pink-lit building in the Amsterdam's red light district, Cohen addressed onlookers.

"For too long, guys coming here from around the world have been forced to have sex with women," he said. "It gives me great pleasure to declare Amsterdam's pink light district officially open for business."

At that point, around a dozen scantily clad men appeared from behind the curtains of the building.

Cohen was in the Dutch capital—garnering curious stares and stirring controversy— to promote the local premiere of his new film, the aptly titled Bruno.
__________

And from WaPo, a similar blurb:

__________

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in his latest incarnation as a gay Austrian fashion reporter, jet skied through a canal into Amsterdam's red light district on Friday to open a brothel full of men in thongs ahead of the Dutch premiere of 'Bruno'. "For too long, guys coming here from around the world have been forced to have sex with women," Cohen said, standing in front of a pink-lit brothel building in the Dutch capital as surprised tourists and stag party goers looked on.
__________

That should get a few folks all hot and bothered, regardless of their stance on gay rights.

Over the fold, an example of the costs of shoddy journalism and knee-jerk acceptance of sTalking Points.

Why is the newspaper industry important?

Why must it be saved? Is it because it's a bastion of information necessary to keep the public informed and to hold accountable those who "serve" in elected office, or is it important to save the industry because of its historic roots, massive size or simply due to the potential influence it could have on the current depression-like recession?

Dan Kennedy of The Guardian UK hits the nail on the head with his recent article, posted Tuesday 12 May 2009:

The challenge isn't to save newspapers – it's to save journalism.

A little further on, he elaborates on this by further defining the purpose of journalism:

The real value that newspapers provide, whether in print or online, is organisation, editing and reputation. Rather than spurning citizen journalists and bloggers, newspapers should embrace them, acting as trusted guides to the best and most reliable sources of information.

Murdoch may groan. The Sulzbergers may mourn. Simon may sneer. But the goal isn't the survival of an industry – it's an informed citizenry.

Let's pull that last sentence and highlight it, shall we?

But the goal isn't the survival of an industry – it's an informed citizenry.

It's not the mere existence of Journalism that holds governments accountable. It's not Fox ("Faux") News, it's not the New York Times, it's not CNN. It's not even blogs or citizen journalism websites.

The media -- the "free press" bemoaned by Nixon and praised by Jefferson -- has morphed and evolved, but the value of the media hasn't changed with regard to the role it is required to play in any healthy democracy: the role it to inform the public and to hold the government, the captains of industry and the purveyors of power and influence accountable to the people.

Together with a solid educational foundation, the "free press" and a citizenry that is both informed and educated work together to ensure that the fiascos of the past aren't carried onward into the future. Had the media done its job instead of losing its way over the past 8 years, we'd be in a far different -- and likely better -- place in terms of matters ranging from social, economic, military and infrastructure.

"...the goal isn't the survival of an industry – it's an informed citizenry."

And an accountable government -- of, by and for the people.

Hat-tip to peter1a for the pointer to the Guardian story.

Update: Check out this prior piece by Prof. Aaron Barlow:

Pro/Am Collaboration In Reporting: Is It Really Needed?

The piece was written for a roundtable at the the Southern States Communication Association annual meeting in Norfolk, VA on April 3, 2009.

What follows is a contribution written by Aaron Barlow for a roundtable at the the Southern States Communication Association annual meeting in Norfolk, VA on April 3, 2009:

Collaboration depends on acceptance of certain assumptions, of course, including that both parties bring something of value to the effort. Given that and my title, you might think that I am going to argue against collaboration, saying that the amateur journalist just doesn't bring enough, that he or she isn't needed, even in the contemporary atmosphere of change and expansion in journalism. But I am not claiming that. In fact, I am not going to propose anything about collaboration at all, for I don't know what the best route for the future is, or if collaboration might be part of it. What I do know is that the amateurs, right now, carry the power in interactions with professional journalists; it is they who control the situation. So, instead of arguing that amateurs are the ones in need (though they may well be), I am going to suggest what many bloggers and citizen journalists have already suggested, that it may be that the professional is no longer be needed, that the fears of journalists over the past decade concerning the future of their profession are justified. Collaboration in reporting, as many see it, may merely be a way of keeping on life support a profession that has seen its day. Perhaps we should, as some have suggested, lay it to rest along side carriage-makers, milkmen, and Linotype operators. Starkly put, what may be feared by journalists for their careers may not be something that the general public need find troubling. The reporter running around shouting “The end is near” may be rousing up nothing more than a yawn. And the public may even be right to yawn.

War, And Results Of, Fast Becoming A Non-Issue!!
US Withdrawing as Media Retreat from Iraq - 03.03.2009

Could this be part of the 'Change' we're not only looking for but this Country needs?

Just caught a short report on Charlotte's local news at WCNC 36, not up on the site yet, about the firing of a Conservative Radio talk show host, one Jeff Katz.

Don't know him and never listened to him, frankly conservative radio and tv news shows give me a freakin headache, and I don't get headaches, no news just blathering opinion, which we find way too much all over the span of the mainstream outlets now, as they say "like assholes, everyones got one!".

There's a reason I use the breakin line to Greg Mitchells book So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits--and the President--Failed on Iraq.

Part of that reason is an article printed in the Asian Times, I just finished reading.

NOTE: Reposted with permission. This piece was originally posted on DailyKos by dorothyinchina, who was unable to crosspost it here. We received her permission to crosspost it on her behalf.

Respected journalist fired for opposing Bill O'Reilly
by dorothyinchina

Tue May 27, 2008 at 09:20:06 AM EDT

Over and over agin on DK, people ask the question, "Why doesn't the MSM stand up to the people who lie, who distort the truth, who bring their own twisted agendas to the news?"

Here is the answer, plain and simple: they're afraid. They have families and kids to put through college, mortgages and car payments. They simply can't afford to tell the truth.

If anyone doubts how risky it is to take a stand, here is a case in point: Boston's Barry Nolan.

At a time when the American economy appears to be suffering from a financial decline, or a recession, there is a constant need and a certain desperation for production to continue-wherever it is possible. Having said that, in the entertainment industry, shouldn't the business (among other prospects) be allowed to expand beyond their simple conquests and explore new pastures, starting with the decrease of censorship?

Famous New York Times journalist Brent Staples is an African American, in appearance alone. He, under no way, shape or form otherwise can be defined as a person of color as he familiarizes himself with contemporary, Caucasian-favored music.

Staples' work is not far from his outlook of life.

In Staples' works, Black Men and Public Space, he admits that in order to avoid otherwise unwarranted elements of discrimination. The question that is now up for debate; can this guy be considered more than just an "uncle Tom" journalist?

I’ve said more than once that America’s most profound strategic casualty in the woebegone war on terror has been its information environment. The recent military operation in Iraq against Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s organization once again illustrates how we have entered a post-modern Orwellian (Rovewellian) age of dissonant dystopia.

The Horse’s Mouthpiece

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: Ohio blog site DaytonOS posted a link to a story by Editor & Publisher about how the Buckeye State's top newspapers, looking for an alternative to the high rates the Associated Press (AP) charges for its stories, pictures and graphics, have inked an agreement share content amongst themselves.

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: Mark Glaser, host of MediaShift, a Public Broadcasting System Weblog devoted to tracking how new media are changing society and culture, posted an informative story Thursday about the blurring of the distinction between bloggers and journalists.

Glaser, a self-described journalist, critic, facilitator and new media expert, said that the “time-worn debate of Bloggers vs. Journalists has finally run its course.” He made his case that while “the extremists in this argument have had the stage shouting at each other,” the reality of this range war is that “mainstream media reporters have started blogging in droves, while larger blog operations have hired seasoned reporters and focused on doing traditional journalism."

OhioNews Bureau

ONB COLUMBUS: Despite the unexplained, follow-the-leader rejections given by the six members of the board of the Ohio Legislative Correspondents Association (OLCA) that prevented me from obtaining a one-day only media pass to report on the State of the State speech given in Columbus Wednesday, I covered the speech from the floor of the Ohio House of Representatives, nonetheless.

JUDGE NOT LEST YE BE JUDGED