Slashdot highlighted this new manifesto related to Journalism. Many of the ideas are ones edubloggers are familiar with but…it never hurts to revisit ideas that reflect fundamental changes in the way we do things. I challenge school district Communications Departments to give some thought to how these new ways of doing things and approaching communication impact their command-n-control approach to sharing information and ideas.

• Internet-Manifesto

  • How journalism works today. Seventeen declarations.
  • . The Internet is different.
  • The media must adapt their work methods to today’s technological reality instead of ignoring or challenging it. It is their duty to develop the best possible form of journalism based on the available technology.
  • 2. The Internet is a pocket-sized media empire.
  • The publication and dissemination of media contents are no longer tied to heavy investments. Journalism’s self-conception is—fortunately—being cured of its gatekeeping function.
  • 3. The Internet is our society is the Internet.
  • If media companies want to continue to exist, they must understand the lifeworld of today’s users and embrace their forms of communication. This includes basic forms of social communication: listening and responding, also known as dialog.
  • 4. The freedom of the Internet is inviolable.
  • The Internet’s open architecture
  • may not be modified for the sake of protecting the special commercial or political interests often hidden behind the pretense of public interest. Regardless of how it is done, blocking access to the Internet endangers the free flow of information and corrupts our fundamental right to a self-determined level of information.
  • 5. The Internet is the victory of information.
  • Due to inadequate technology, media companies, research centers, public institutions and other organizations compiled and classified the world’s information up to now. Today every citizen can set up her own personal news filter while search engines tap into wealths of information of a magnitude never before known.
  • 6. The Internet changes improves journalism.
  • Those who want to survive in this new world of information need a new idealism, new journalistic ideas and a sense of pleasure in exploiting this new potential.
  • 8. Links reward, citations adorn.
  • References through links and citations—especially including those made without any consent or even remuneration of the originator—make the very culture of networked social discourse possible in the first place.
  • 10. Today’s freedom of the press means freedom of opinion.
  • no differentiation should be made between paid and unpaid journalism, but rather, between good and poor journalism.
  • 15. What’s on the net stays on the net.
  • The Internet is lifting journalism to a new qualitative level. Online, text, sound and images no longer have to be transient. They remain retrievable, thus building an archive of contemporary history. Journalism must take the development of information, its interpretation and errors into account, i.e., it must admit its mistakes and correct them in a transparent manner.
  • 17. All for all.
  • The Internet makes it possible to communicate directly with those once known as recipients—readers, listeners and viewers—and to take advantage of their knowledge. Not the journalists who know it all are in demand, but those who communicate and investigate.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.