Wiki This

Michael Hedges June 23, 2005

A week ago the Los Angeles Times experimented with cyber-media, allowing people to take over the editorial page on the web-site. And they did, bombarding the site with obscenities. The experiment ended three days later.
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Rewrite the editorial yourself,” the web-site offered. It would be “a constantly evolving collaboration among readers in a communal search for truth. Or that’s the theory.” Thousand did just that, adding and deleting.

After the third day editors could not keep up with the traffic in obscenities. The web page was shut down with an apology: "Unfortunately, we have had to remove this feature, at least temporarily, because a few readers were flooding the site with inappropriate material. Thanks and apologies to the thousands of people who logged on in the right spirit."

The idea was based on the popular Wikipedia, an on-line encyclopedia that allows users to add and correct entries in the hope of creating greater collective understanding through thoughtful participation. The editorial page – often considered over-rated and under-read – would then be a perfect place to experiment with collective opinion. After all, blog and talk radio ranting is all the rage.

The experiment was in de-mediated brainstorming. Unfortunately, it assumed that goals of uses and the LA Times would be the same. Brainstorming works because all participants have a vested interest in seeing it work. The technique also requires a strong mediator.

Powering Wikipedia and similar services is software essentially the same as popular blog software, giving easy access and the power to create. Blogs, as they are promoted, facilitate instant publishing. And, on the Web, all sites are equal much like all 150 cable TV channels are equally accessible. All one needs is a remote control device.

The similarity between web and TV browsing is striking. For those so addicted “something” is always on and available. People stop and pay attention when struck by something that appeals at the moment, for a moment.

If anything LA Times Opinion Editor Michael Kinsley deserves enormous credit for showing the real nature of cyber-journalism. It’s crude and rude. That’s the good news and the bad.

The Web de-mediates media, placing traditional media – all those launched before 1999 – in a conundrum. The internet is stealing readers, viewers and listeners, so the surveys tell. Bloggers attract attention, certainly in the United States but increasingly elsewhere. Traditional media, it appears, cannot compete.

And it’s true. Audiences and readers – at least those wired to the net – are bored sitting in a Ferrari buckled down by a seat-belt.

Kinsley came to the LA Times a year ago after founding, for Microsoft, the popular e-zine Slate. He promised to revitalize the editorial and opinion pages. Another new feature called “Thinking Out Loud,” also launched last week, allows editorial board members to comment, without conclusion, on one topic. The idea is similar to the technique of “showing process” used by 24 hour radio and TV news channels for more than a decade. The Washington Post recently purchased Slate.

Media interactivity remains illusive, as the Wikitorial proves. Blogs and Wikis have become institutional features as publishers – print and electronic – feel their way around cyberspace for audiences and revenue. The newest fad is the podcast, offering downloaders something to download. Again, the point is missed. Podcasters, like bloggers, want media to facilitate their own creations, not participate in the creations of others.

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Michael Kinsley Leaves LA Times - September 13, 2005

The tenure of Michael Kinsley at the LA Times has come to a close.

Text of email from Kinsley to staff, from Laobserved.com

From: Michael Kinsley

Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2005 4:54 AM

Subject: local news

Hi. In case you haven't heard already, the Publisher is announcing this morning that I'm leaving the Los Angeles Times. The news stories a few weeks ago saying that I would be giving up managerial duties but staying with the paper were not wrong. That is what I wanted and what John Carroll wanted too. But Jeff wants a "clean break." He did offer to discuss at some future date the possibility of my continuing to write a column as a non-employee. And he raised the possibility of some consulting on web matters down the road.

This did not seem overly welcoming, and further inquiries by me and others have made clear that it wasn't intended to. For whatever reason, Jeff isn't merely uninterested in any future contribution I might make, but actively wants me gone. So I'm off, with some regret and some excitement, to the Washington Post, duties TBD but including the column. I hope it will continue to appear in the LA Times as well, but that is beyond my control.

I'm sorry this has ended on a bitter note. I've loved my brief time at the Los Angeles Times. I've learned a l lot, and made (I hope) some friends for life. Even the frustrations have been fascinating frustrations. And I think I've done some good for the paper, though others may not agree. The LA Times has some of the nicest people and finest journalists I've ever worked with, starting at the top with Dean. And even Jeff will have to give me credit for bringing in Andres. I expect great things from him, and from you.

Reading last Sunday's excellent Current section, put out while Bob was on vacation, it struck me that one test of an editor is how could his or per product is when he or she is not around. That is one way to measure the strength of an editor's vision and the quality of the people he or she has chosen to work with. Sipchen passes the test with flying colors. I'm counting on all of you to help me pass it too, starting now.

Thanks.

Mike

Ps I'm in DC, but there will be opportunities for mawkish farewells or spitballs in the next few weeks.

Yes, Virginia, Cyberspace is Creepy – July 25, 2005

A short month ago, the Los Angeles Times launched a noble experiment in participatory journalism – the Wikitorial – which failed, insofar as it had to be shut down. It seems, LA Times discovered, cyberspace is filled with creeps, more interested in disruption than high-minded intellectual discourse. Blogs, those personal internet spaces, are filled more with grumbling and insults than information and dialogue, their day passing quickly.

In an op-ed column in the Washington Post (Sunday, July 24) LA Times Opinion and Editorial editor Michael Kinsley called for civility on the World Wide Web.

“The happiest and most peaceful parts of the World Wide Web are the places where people are buying things. The nasty parts of the Web are where people are doing what the Founding Surfers intended: expressing themselves and forming communities.”

“It's not surprising that cyberians make lousy communitarians, but the ugliest aspects of libertarianism -- the me-me-me, the stay-out-of-my-space -- have dominated.”

“The rallying cry of the early cybernauts was: "Information wants to be free." It implied a world without money, where the path between you and your dream was frictionless.”

“All it is now is a silly rationale for ripping other people off.”

Ah, reality....