Professor Jay Rosen of NYU offers his paper on credibility on the web, which we asked him to write in preparation for the conference on Blogging, Journalism and Credibility this coming Friday and Saturday. There’s a cross-post on the conference web site that allows for comments as well.
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My hope for this conference is that it will be substantive and serious, if imperfect. We’ll never get agreement that the right people are in the room; many will choose to ignore the proceedings; these things are fine. My hope on this score is that those who disagree with our event will take up the problem in other ways and in other spaces.
The discussion swirling around our modest event has turned personal and, unfortunately, nasty at times in the comments section of the conference site. That the event has provoked strong feelings — heat, energy, loads of comments, posts, and cross-posts — to me is almost all to the good. But the personal attacks on individuals (most especially those anonymous personal attacks) involved does not put any of us who blog in a positive light. And the discussion overall will only be successful if the process generates not only heat but also light.
The purpose must be to ensure that the web is a credible space — the only way forward for our democracy.
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