Monday, November 14, 2011

Guardian lets public contribute to shaping the news


A newspaper has thrown open its office doors, let the readers stride in, and invited them to peer over reporters’ shoulders — digitally, at least.The website of the left-leaning Guardian daily is publishing its ‘newslist’ — a schedule of stories its journalists are working on — and asking readers to help shape the coverage by contacting its reporters on Twitter....

Read the rest at Raw Story
by Agence France-Presse

This may seem like a small and rather insignificant event, but it is actually a big step forward toward the extension of open source, distributed systems, interactivity, and social networking into other area than the Internet and IT. This is the future of business models, and smart companies are going to recognize it. Those that don't will go the way of the buggy whip makers.

3 comments:

Oliver said...

Tom, you may be interested in these films by Adam Curtis regarding the idea of democracy as a system without hierarchies. They were made before OWS but are relevant to it nonetheless because they explore the important question: and then what?

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace/

and an interview with Curtis about said films:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sKCDl5Br4g

The Red Capitalist said...

Sorry Mario - this idea is only cool if 200m out of 300m people in the US are not ignorant idiots (which in fact they are).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob5N_at06rE

Just listen to this and tell me you really think its a such a good idea after you do.

Mario said...

well that's true too red cap. I hear ya there.

The thing is people need to learn how to have intelligent conversation and the mediators that are taking these calls need to not just "shut them up" but rather start thinking and asking them questions and challenging them. It's important for people to realize that there are stupid things to say and there are dumb ideas and nobody has a right to dump bs on anybody else without the same right to challenge and question it rigorously as well. These are basic intellectual operating standards but are not always practiced.

Democracy is a tough thing to live in if there is not a real drive for the Truth and wisdom and reality. Personally I'd rather live under a monarchy where the King and his men are truly wise and powerful (like Soloman for example) rather than a democracy of dumbasses.