In her Blandin on Broadband post Broadband or Internet news from towns around Minnesota, Ann included a link to a commentary by Jon Tatting, editor of the Isanti County News. In it, Tatting ponders the state of news media in age of blogs.

I’ve just returned from The New Pamphleteers/New Reporters: A Passion for Place, hosted by the folks at Journalism That Matters, where over one hundred entrepreneurs who combine journalism, democracy, place and blogs spent two days probing the relationship between traditional media and the new media made possible by technology.

My big takeaway from the conference was crystallized in a presentation by John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation. While others were making distinctions between “big J” and “little j” journalists (professionally trained vs citizen bloggers), Nichols issued an invitation to think of anyone who gathers information and conveys it to others as a journalist. He dispelled the notion of “journalism ethics” as a lie (which was amplified in speeches given this weekend by Dan Rather and Bill Moyers at the National Conference for Media Reform held in Minneapolis), instead he stated that anyone engaged in journalism must be guided by personal ethics. Nichols also offered the measure of success for online journalism not in the number of hits a site receives but by its influence over the course of time. As many question mainstream media (print newspapers was the primary focus), it’s reassuring to know that new media entrepreneurs are defining themselves and their role in civil society – made possible by broadband technology.

I want to quickly tell you about the “Open Space” conference format used, which brings people together for shared learning, guided by the “Law of Two Feet” – if you’re neither contributing nor getting value where you are, use your two feet (or available form of mobility) and go somewhere where you can.

From the law flow four principles:
• Whoever comes are the right people
• Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
• Whenever it starts is the right time
• When it’s over, it’s over

I’ve attended countless traditionally structured conferences, and this format was refreshing and invigorating. The benefits were quickly revealed as we self-organized to have rich discussions. When I felt I’d learned what I could from a session and had nothing else to contribute, it was liberating to use the “Law of Two Feet” to join a new group and continue learning. Another key component of open space conferences is the online networking both before and after the conference to keep the networking going. Click this link to learn more about open space technology. The Blandin Foundation will be learning more about this process as we prepare for a “Rural Voices – Online Citizen Engagement and Media” conference early in 2009.