Yesterday, I participated in KFAI’s Speaker Series presentation of long-time, award-winning Twin Cities journalist Nick Coleman. I sat on the panel of public affairs programmers in my capacity as an independent self-publisher on the topic of the Twin Cities (aka a cityblogger) for going on five years, first at the Minneapolis Metblog and now at my own site, fresh.mn. My fellow panelists were:
- Jeremy Iggers, executive director of the Twin Cities Media Alliance which, among other things, publishes the Twin Cities Daily Planet, a premier online resource for access to community and ethnic media
- Lynnell Mickelsen, cohost of KFAI’s Truth to Tell
- Laura Waterman-Wittstock, a former journalist, author, advocate for the American Indian community, and host of KFAI’s First Nations Radio
- Mike McIntee, executive producer for The Uptake
Nick Coleman opened the program with his remarks and took some questions, and then we each had the opportunity to respond to his comments and take more audience questions.
I have several points that I try to make whenever I participate in this discussion.
- Young people and old people consume their news in fundamentally different ways. This is often overlooked and misunderstood by older journalists, even though they are making valiant efforts to adapt.
- I know the words “blog” and “blogger” have a particular connotation and those terms are often used condescendingly and with disdain. It’s very important to make the distinction between the message and the medium. Blogs are a legitimate platform for self-publication.