An informative interview with Nicholas Reville of getmiro.com. He talks about open-source and video - important as television goes online.

Jeff Jarvis has a little test drive of Google’s new forms app. His survey is asking what parts of newspapers - sports section, critics, foreign news, etc. - you think should be eliminated. This could get interesting and is a no-brainer for media outlets looking to get a little closer to their audience. Of course, surveys, particularly online, are fraught with validity problems etc. But it could be a good conversation starter.

The Johnson County Library near Kansas City has taken a bold step that more educators, particularly at the university level, should take. The library is sponsoring a class on Wikipedia, a valuable step toward media literacy. According to an article in the Kansas City Star, the class will discuss the pros and cons of Wikipedia as well as examine how information is generated in a networked environment.

Universities should offer a similar first-year class rather than taking the drastic step of banning the use of resources like Wikipedia.

Relatedly, Educause has posted a podcast of a Henry Jenkins speech that uses Wikipedia as a case study of how media literacy should work.

At the risk of seeming a little petty … here’s a quote regarding trust in business leaders from a recent Financial Times preview of the upcoming World Economic Forum:

But, in their battle to regain public trust, chief executives will have to fight some unexpected enemies. When young US opinion leaders were asked to choose the most credible source for corporate information, a surprising 55 per cent mentioned Wikipedia. The free online encyclopedia, written by users with minimal editing, came out above traditional outlets such as television and radio, and even above much-trumpeted “new media” such as blogs and social networking sites. Only articles in business publications scored more highly.

Anyone remotely familiar with Wikipedia knows that it can be accused of many things … “minimal editing” certainly is not one of them. In fact, a more fair accusation might be to accuse it of being overedited. And, the last time I checked, Wikipedia was a key part of that “new media” of which they speak. Seems like the watched are ahead of the watchers on this one. You would think a cutting-edge international business publication like the FT would be a little more informed and, can’t resist, credible.

Moving sound slide package from John Moore and the New York Times on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Jay Rosen has made good on his commitment to persuade a handful of news organizations to blend social media (blogs in this case) and beat reporting.  The idea is simple. Rosen writes:

Maybe a beat reporter could do a way better job if there was a “live” social network connected to the beat, made up of people who know the territory the beat covers, and want the reporting on that beat to be better.

The idea continues Rosen’s efforts to blend the work of professional journalists with “amateur” reporting to enhance the effectiveness of both. We can follow the progress of the experiment (and that’s all it is so far) at beatblogging.org. Cool idea.