The research found that journalism on independent local news and information Web sites is increasingly becoming an act of participation, not just an act of observation. The participatory involvement calls for site editors to collaborate with readers in trawling for stories, unraveling news as it is happening, and ensuring that people know how to engage in community issues and events.

Site editors say they are abandoning what some call “antiquated” notions of dispassionate objectivity to “cut to the chase” and provide news that connects their community, not just covers it — even as they value and adhere to standards of accuracy, honesty, transparency, and sharing.

I wonder how much these entrepreneurs value fairness. Transparency means less if we’re not replacing “dispassionate objectivity” with unfair coverage, or if we’re sacrificing facts — the FUD surrounding global climate change or pre-Iraq War coverage, for example, — for some notion of balance.

The report outlines six themes relevant to hyper-local community sites, all worth reading if you are an old media company looking for ways to become more relevant to your community.

I’ve had a few conversations and thoughts about blogging in the last few days: what it is, how it’s changed, what we are getting out of it, and whether being a personal blogger is worth the time and effort it takes.

I’ve been thinking about this since my 2005 presentation at ConvergeSouth. I looked at the blogging landscape then, when Technorati’s Top 100 still mattered, and making lists was all the rage. It was clear, even then, that big brands, group blogs, and upper-income, white, male geeks dominated the conversation space.

Dave Winer was in the audience for the session giving me a bit of grief about my argument. My point was a simple one: the “blogosphere” is just replicating our offline voices, culture, beliefs, and power structures online. I pointed to blogs like BoingBoing and DailyKos as examples of sites that get all the glory, traffic, ad revenue, and media coverage.

Winer’s response: “Well, those aren’t really blogs.”

My counterpoint at the time — and I don’t think I said it out loud, but I sure did think about it a lot and had really did intend to write a post — was “Who decides what is and isn’t a blog?”

This point came up again during a recent conversation with J. We were — or at least I was — lamenting the current condition of ‘blogging’ as we know it. What was a personal publishing platform, a genre of website, and a close(-ish) community of writers and readers has been co-opted by major media corporations and overwhelmed by ad-supported, multiple-author mega blogs.

Or maybe Winer was right: those aren’t blogs. Maybe blogging is inherently about individuals and not about audience, growth, mindshare, or that wackest of wack buzzwords: monetization. How can we reclaim that definition and draw distinctions between ‘blogs’ — content written by an individual, not a staff — and “highly-trafficked web site with opinion and analysis pieces that allow comments?” How can we return ‘blogging’ to to it’s definition of being conversations between individuals and not let it be redefined by corporations and profiteers?

Sort of related

• How to create your own web log/’blog/blog
• This is why, this is why, this is why I Tweet.
• Where Are the Black Tech Bloggers?

Elsewhere

• On whuffie, social capital, and social climbing by Cecily

I learned this lesson the hard way. I blogged about my breakup that started in February 2007, here, on Vox, and on Yahoo! 360. This was shortly before SXSW 2007.

Blogging was cathartic for me. But it also put my ex on blast, and opened us both up to a lot of questions about why we were splitting. I distinctly remember having uncomfortable conversations at SXSW about what was happening, especially since most of my SXSW crew had met the ex at SXSW 2006. The ex was also drilled by his rather large circle of friends and acquaintances.

I even argued with the ex about whether and where I should blog — Vox was the community where my peoples played; Yahoo! 360 was where his friend’s stayed, though I was connected to his friends there. If I had to blog, he wanted to know, why did I have to blog there and not where my friends were?

It made an uncomfortable situation worse — more for him than for me (win!) — but I decided that I’d rethink being so public about relationships in the future.

Then came Twitter, which, thanks to its ambient intimacy, made staying involved in my friend’s lives a lot easier. Even though we were, in some cases, separated by 2,100+ miles and three time zones, we still had this wonderful sense of connection.

SXSW 2008, then, was markedly different. I didn’t need to catch up on what was happening with my friends. We could just enjoy some real-world face time. I felt my online friendships slowly melting into offline ones.

One friendship in particular had changed in a palpable way. After some Twitter conversations, surprising dreams, and a series of private-plurks, I found myself on a plane to Los Angeles for Labor Day Weekend.

First and foremost, our trip was about seeing each other and having fun as friends. We have always had an easy way with each other, and some of the absolute best times I’ve had since 2005 — the year we met at SXSW — have involved him.

But we also knew this was about a potential love thing shaped by, if not directly attributable, to Twitter and Plurk.

We both live our lives in the digital public, and are generally open about things. We also, however, have a sense of privacy and boundaries. This tension came out in weird ways, particularly around whether and what to tweet. Is it an innocent tweet, or a double-entendre? Do I mention our visit to Frederick’s of Hollywood? What about those hilarious one-liners that are almost too good not to share, but would reveal what we did and how?

Ultimately, we were both concerned with how things would be (mis)construed. And what kinds of intrusive questions would arise from those who know us, and those who think they know us?

And while I’m at it, what about us? I’m not sure I was ready to officially state what was up between us, even though our friends knew instinctively. What’s said offline and hinted at through a carefully-crafted, semi-private tweet is, still, in many ways, deniable. If things didn’t work out, the details would be obscured if not concealed.

But what’s expressed publicly and tagged with my name? That’s big. And brave. And Google-able. And cache-able. It’s a huge leap of faith in our friends, our acquaintances, and most of all, in whatever this is between us.

• Edit tracking: Tucked way down at the bottom of each post is a revision history. You can see who changed what and when.
• SSL support for your administrative panel, plus the ability to force SSL logins. That’s critical if you frequently blog from public WiFi spots.
• Press This: Post links, YouTube and Yahoo! Videos with a couple of clicks. This bookmarklet will extract a URL, or video embed code and ready it for posting.
• Better plug-in update notification: Now you’ll see a bubble over the plugins link in the top navigation indicating how of your plugins have updates.
• Theme preview: the ability to see a theme on your blog before selecting it.

Also notable — though only for what it could mean for future versions of WordPress — is support for Gears. This version of WordPress only saves CSS and JavaScript files locally. I suspect future versions will also support offline editing as Zoho Writer does now.

The 2.5 branch of WordPress will no longer be maintained, making 2.6 a mandatory upgrade if you want to keep your installation current.

I upgraded today with no problems — at least that I’ve noticed. However, since 2.6 makes changes to your database, backup your data first.

Official WordPress announcement

• Lea Donosky, interactivity manager, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Jeremy C. Garlington, publisher of The Garlington Report
• Greg Lisby, professor of journalism, Georgia State University
• David Rubinger, VP, Corporate Communications, Equifax

This panel will be moderated by Dr. John Knapp, Director of GSU Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility

I encourage all bloggers to go and be vocal about what journalists and businesspeople do and (sadly) don’t get about online.

The Kremlin piece starts about 6 minutes and 17 seconds into the show [MP3 download].

And you can find the T-shirt in the photo accompanying the post on CafePress.com.