I’ll try to reframe my point about synthesis — following an issue or news thread by reading across connected or related pieces of content still leaves the individual to figure out what it all means. It’s great that we’re empowering individuals, but we all have our limits — we can all use help figuring out what it all means. I hesitate to use this phrase, but we need media entities that serve the function of connecting the dots — what does it all add up to?

I still maintain that whoever figures that out will be the next Google. Google (search) is the killer app for finding discrete pieces. What’s the killer app for finding useful “wholes”?

Elliott, corrections and retractions may not be sufficient accountability, but it’s more than we’re getting from Web 2.0. It’s also about conscience — as Steve points out, BW may make mistakes, but at least there’s someone to feel accountable for the mistakes and to take responsibility for trying to make it better. It’s possible that someone will find a way to make collective accountability work, but I worry that in our litigious society that may prove to be a messy prospect. (I hope for my sake you continue to break your resolution.)

I’m intrigued by Steve’s notion that some story concepts might be more suited to open sourcing, which could take journalists in a different direction from where they might go if they were writing for print. But I don’t think traditional print journalism would hesitate to take on any story idea, so I don’t see why open-source journalism should be any different, i.e. more limited.

That said, I think you are talking about a different level of reconstruction…

With regards to your response to my characterization of your model as one where “BusinessWeek pockets all the revenue,” point taken. I wasn’t suggesting that BW include the blogosphere in revenue-sharing to the detriment of their business. You’re right this is for the invisible hand to decide. I was merely musing, and clumsily so, that their is still an alternative model in which amateur content creators (writers, musicians, writers) SELL their work directly to interested parties. Skip advertising. How would this look? I don’t know but I think it is the answer for bloggers and the like; collaborate on more comprehensive (but still time-sensitive) projects and someone soon will create a more techno-savvy mechanism to sell them for real money. But everyone should still keep their day job for now.

I won’t take any more space up on your comments. I am trying to stick with my new years resolution keeping out of the blogosphere but you provocative writing is making that difficult. I’ll stay tuned.

As far as the spelling goes… It would be foolish for me to brag about our spell-checking and fact-checking, because readers will always find mistakes. All I can say is that we take it seriously–and feel miserable when we make mistakes.

Sure Wikipedia proves that New Media can do its own fact checking, but there are limits to that accountability, as we saw with the false biography of John Seigenthaler. Nobody was minding the store and someone’s reputation was unfairly dragged through the mud. This was a significant blow to Wikipedia’s credibility, and to the whole concept.

Here’s a more minor, but still significant example — you misspelled my name in your comments on one of my other posts, which you cut and pasted (with the same mistake) on another site:

“Seriously considering new models for distribution wouldn’t, as Scoot suggest, amount to “Communism” but rather create new revenue streams.”

Who is going to fix that error? Maybe you don’t care, but I do. And your not caring would be a slippery slope for New Media, since in the self-policing model, we’re all accountable.

Old Media may be “bureaucratic,” but at least they have the courtesy to issue a correction if they spell your name wrong (and are much less likely to do so in the first place).

UPDATE: After writing this I noticed that I had spelled Elliott’s name wrong and fixed it.