Doc Searls, Dave Winer, and Dan Gillmor Impromptu Panel
Dave: do we want bloggers in the media industry doing self-introspection to how this works?
Dan: it's like any institution, he works for them and he doesn't think it's his role to expose the working of the organization
Frank Paynter: what happened with John Robb? what about posts/stories on Scripting News that are now gone?
Dave: had a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders of the company; employment laws favor the employee, and so he can't say anymore about this
Frank: don't those laws apply to these newspaper employees, too?
Dave: everybody has things they can't write about; because they control the flow of the news, they're important
Doc: there's more transparency in the media industry than there's ever been before; has the sense that the Greensboro paper is more transparent because Ed is out there talking about it; Ed includes links in the blog; the boiler rooms of decision-making are not always exposed, but they're so highly-penetrated now by those who are blogging and writing
Dave: are there scandals we don't hear about?
Doc: looking forward to the point where Dean campaign takes in so much money they decide not to use it
Audience: if you're an insider, what's your responsibility?
Doc: people talk, this is what they do
Dan: Dave has a view that the media has an obligation to be more transparent than any other industry; thinks the media do a generally crappy job of covering the media, but the best coverage won't be the NYT doing pages on Jayson Blair, but the Washington Post doing it; should be covering each other more
Dave: would your paper let you go after the Times?
Dan: thinks so, but not sure
Dave: Jay Rosen, do you think they are covering themselves well?
Jay: the opaque nature of news organizations is coming to an end and they are discovering it's not only possible to be more open but they have to be; the NYT document is all about transparency, uses the word "accountability" about ten times; the Times can't ignore the way other organizations write about them anymore is very significant
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