PR, participatory journalism, and transparency

Steve Rubel interviews Jay Rosen in Global PR Blog Week on public relations, participatory journalism, open media and transparency. Wonderful insights here. Excerpt:

STEVE RUBEL: How would you define participatory journalism?

JAY ROSEN: Right now, by what people like Debbie Galant are doing-- hyperlocal journalism, weblog-style. ("NOW SERVING MONTCLAIR, GLEN RIDGE AND BLOOMFIELD.") But really there are hundreds more developments to illustrate. Ask someone like Len Witt of the Public Journalism Network (meeting in Toronto soon about participatory journalism): he's one guy tracking the story as citizens begin to participate in journalism. Or follow JD Lasica, who's not only on the story, but a driver of it with conference talks, articles, books, and a daily weblog-- ideas for use, as this approach is sometimes called. And what Jeff Jarvis is up to in advising a team of students at Northwestern, who created this, and at his Buzzmachine.

Is it more than just blogging? Yes... it's the spirit of participation, which moves people into doing things for themselves, into taking action of some kind, where before they were attentive but inert, or out of it completely, uninvolved. We have seen this force erupt many times in the modern world, this passion to participate.

There is every reason to suppose that it would come 'round in journalism. I mean, why not? Every journalist who's any good will tell you that being a reporter is fun. Plus, a lot of people are fascinated by the news, and what's wrong with it. There are smart people in every corner of this country, many without any professional standing or stake whatsoever--just citizens, right?--who are seriously frustrated by the failures and flaws they see in the American press.

When those people find that the tools for doing journalism, or some activity interpretative of it, are within reach, it's an ignition-- there's a spark. Is it all weblogs? No, participatory zeal is common everywhere, especially in domains of information. ...

The new thing is how, in the online space, bloggers knit the news together with their views and views arriving from elsewhere, and then manage to embed into the Web this second imprint, upon the items that originally struck us as news.

And so you have the first wave (also called a news cycle) and a second that embeds it further into the Web, with interpretations adding to a web of other notes and reactions. How is this possible? Because the bloggers know how to link, and quote, and entice you to look elsewhere, zap around. They're way ahead of the journalists on that. If people in the press would just understand that one fact they would grasp what weblogs are about, and why they're being talked about at all today as "journalism."