A few weekends ago I attended a fantastic conference in Vancouver, The Future of Public Institutions--New Media, the Press, and The Museum sponsored by The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and organized by two of their scholars Mike Ananny (Stanford University) and Kate Hennessy (University of British Columbia). I sat on a panel with Alfred Hermida founding member of the award-winning BBCNews.com website and Tim Richards of CBC. My talk The New Publics of the New News addressed the way the notion of “public interest” takes on different meaning depending on the perceived role of the public in the process of newsgathering and distribution.
And on April 17 the Estlow Center for International Journalism at University of Denver held an event honoring Renee Montaigne, host of NPR's morning Edition. The day was packed with great discussions about the changing power dynamics of news and storytelling.
In my brief talk Diversity Online I argued that on the web diversity has as much to do with form and genre as with traditional demographic indicators like race and gender.
