Armenia-based “Journalists For The Future” has led a project to translate Mediactive into Armenian, and I visited there last week to help launch the new edition. I met some extraordinary people and learned a lot about the media scene there.
As with the original, the book is freely available online, in an interactive edition. You can find it at this link.
Special thanks to the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan for funding the project, and for covering the costs of my trip there.
I had the pleasure this week to meet journalism students from Shantou (China) University who are working on a Chinese translation of Mediactive. They’re using the fabulous Yeeyan service, which is like a Wikipedia of translation.
It was great fun visiting with the Shantou students yesterday. Several of them, with big smiles, introduced themselves as “Chapter Nine” and “Chapter 3” and the like.
They’re being supervised by my old friend and colleague Ying Chan, dean of the journalism school at Shantou and director of Hong Kong University’s Journalism & Media Studies Centre, where I used to teach for a few weeks each fall. She tells me the first draft is done and posted, and comments are coming in. There are a number of other steps in the process (including a full copy-edit), and we’re hoping it’ll be posted early next year.
UPDATE: This translation (which did exist) appears to be offline. I’m looking into this.
I’m delighted to see this translation, by volunteers, of the book in Spanish. The PDF is here.
The AEJMC (journalism education’s biggest membership group) has posted a review of Mediactive, by David Kamerer of Loyola University. Quote:
Journalism is going through transformative change, and some institutions will fail. But it won’t be the end of journalism. Our economy is more information-dominant than ever. Barriers to entry have never been lower. Millions are publishing and gaining influence in their chosen spheres. And who knows? Out of these millions of seedlings may grow the New York Times of the future. If you want to participate in this dynamic marketplace of ideas, Mediactive is a useful guide that will speed your progress.
At MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media, Jack Driscoll sees Mediactive as a common-sense follow-up to We the Media. The book, he writes, assumes “we no longer are receptacles of information but active participants in the process, who are called on to break out of our ‘comfort zone’ like a chick cracking open its shell.”
Arthur Brisbane, the New York Times’ Public Editor (ombudsman), mentioned Mediactive in his column today. He was looking at the question of speed versus accuracy in the news environment, and while I don’t agree with his conclusions I’m glad he gave the topic some notice.
(Note: I’ve known Brisbane for more than three decades, and consider him a friend.)
Levi Sumagaysay, who writes Good Morning Silicon Valley, the long-running tech blog of the San Jose Mercury News, interviewed me about the book and the project. Here’s an excerpt:
GMSV: You write in Mediactive: “There’s no conflict between having a world view and doing great journalism.” Do you think people understand that? Or has the myth been pounded into their heads that there needs to be two “balanced” sides in every story?
Gillmor: I hope that we’re making progress toward the reality that it’s not balanced to give equal weight to two sides when one side is lying. People understand that’s not the way the world is, that that’s just bogus. [But I see more] journalists pointing out outright lies. It’s hard for them to do it, but it’s a good thing. They don’t want to be regarded as partisan. I’d rather be falsely called a partisan than correctly called a dupe.
Read the full interview here.
Meanwhile, the Boston Phoenix blog features a crossposting of a long Q&A I did with former Phoenix media critic Dan Kennedy, a professor of journalism at Boston University, at his Media Nation site. Dan generously advises:
[Y]ou should all read “Mediactive.” It’s edgier and less optimistic than “We the Media,” but Gillmor has lost none of his passion for urging readers, viewers and listeners – the “former audience,” as Gillmor dubbed them in his first book – to get up off their seats and demand that the media be held accountable.
Here’s a link to the Phoenix piece, and to Dan’s original Media Nation posting.
Many thanks to both Dan and Levi.
If you’re in the Washington, DC, area and have an interest in the new media world, please join us for a conversation about Mediactive at the New American Foundation. It’s on Wednesday, Jan. 12, at 5:30 pm.
Shane Richmond, head of editorial technology at the Telegraph in London, says on his 26books.com site:
Everyone who uses or contributes to the media should read this book. It’s a welcome injection of sanity.
Thanks!
Richard Bailey, who writes the public relations education blog “Behind the Spin,” puts Mediactive at the top of his “books of the year” — what he considers the “five best books about – or of value for – public relations students and practitioners published in 2010” — saying (among other things):
[the book’s ideas] apply to all media consumers and media content creators (ie to all of us) and core concepts such as trust and transparency are central to public relations practice.
Here’s his full review.