Extra! Extra! Read it on Twitter
Nineteen Critical Mass bikers were arrested in Minneapolis last night during their monthly ride. I'm not going to talk about harassment and/or justice in this post except to say that it looks like the Minneapolis police used excessive force during the arrests. There are videos and photos for viewing. (Follow the links.)

I'm going to talk about how I found out within a few hours and without the help of any official media source. A link drifted in on Twitter, a twit from Mr. Ed Kohler: "What the heck happened at Critical Mass in Minneapolis tonight?" with a link to a report at City Pages Blotter. Then another twit, WCCO's Jason DeRusha stating CCO would have a report with video soon. This was around 10 p.m.

I ran a Google news search and found the Indymedia report.

Nothing at StarTribune. (They have a story now.)

There's something happening here and we know what it is.

It's about the shifting media space and the shouts I'm hearing out here on the 'Net. It's about casual news sources beating out traditional sources.

Labels: journalism, media, news, newspapers

- posted by Peter Fleck @ Permalink 10:15 AM |

 
Life Time Fitness Meets Buzz
Star Tribune's Buzz.mn is definitely worth checking out for local stories written by people just like you and me. They have some true citizen-media-journalism hyperlocal placeblogging going on. I think anyone can get an account and publish.

Make sure to check the Life Time Fitness thread by nmdevitt:

Are you a member of LifeTime Fitness, which now operates all the (former) Northwest Athletic Clubs? Am I the only one who is ANGRY that the two oldest, worst-equipped clubs are in a tier (eg, St Louis Park and Crosstown) with higher monthly dues than the newer, far-better euipped clubs (eg, Chanhassen, Plymouth clubs)?

She's started a grassroots campaign and hit a serious nerve regarding Lifetime and it's fee structures. She got a story in Star Tribune (which I cannot locate in their search engine). She has managed to get her own membership terminated by the corporation (bad move, Life Time).

This would have been soooo hard to accomplish in pre-blog days.

You will note that sometimes I use "Life Time" and sometimes "Lifetime." If you go to the Life-Time site, you'll see that they are not sure who they are either.

Labels: blogging, newspapers, placeblog

- posted by Peter Fleck @ Permalink 6:28 AM |

 
Peter Speaking at U of M’s Wireless Cities Conference
Garrick beat me to the post but I'll carry on with my announcement that Garrick and I will be part of a panel at the University of Minnesota Wireless Cities Conference April 16 at Walter Library. Our panel, Media and Wireless Communities is at 3:15. We'll share the stage with Christina Lopez of the U's Digital Media Center; Jeremy Iggers, former Star Tribune restaurant critic and current Director of Twin Cities Media Alliance (parent organization of TC Daily Planet); and moderator Nora Paul, Director of the Institute for New Media Studies. The conference runs two days and the cost is $175 ($75 for U of M attendees).

I think this is going to be interesting.

Required readings... Michael Maranda on bringing folks out of isolation to tell their stories, Doc Searls on the Giant Zero, and Garrick on news by the block.

From Doc's post:

The Net is a giant zero. It puts everybody zero distance from everybody and everything else. And it supports publishing and broadcasting at costs that round to zero as well.

we don't just "deliver information" like it's a Fedex package. We inform each other. That is, we literally form what other people know.

Labels: blogging, broadband, digital_inclusion, newspapers, placeblog, UM

- posted by Peter Fleck @ Permalink 7:00 PM |

 
The Newspaper Struggle
Over at David Strom's Web Informant, David Hakala writes an intriguing piece about newspapers, online and off.

Newspapers will never get IT right

That title is his conclusion. Newspapers don't get IT—as in "Information Technology"— right and, they don't get it, meaning the news delivery business right. They are shackled to old concepts like selling the news as it ages and advertising. Right: I want to pay money for old news in their archives. If anything I might pay for current news if they were the only outlet.

And no matter what Bill Gates says, advertising as we currently know it is going to die. I think it will be a pretty messy death and we will all have to suffer through some really irritating histrionics but throwing ads out mindlessly, even to something you've identified as your target group, won't be sustained under the new Internet regime where I will manage my vendors the way I like.

David does a wonderful job of deconstructing the online newspaper presence and make sure to read the comments.

Bonus: Project VRM site.

Labels: news, newspapers, vrm

- posted by Peter Fleck @ Permalink 2:56 PM |