Alarm

James Medoff, a Harvard economics professor, sounded an alarm bell in 1996 when he published "The Indebted Society" (Little Brown & Co.) with his associate Andrew Harless and with an introduction by Prof. James Kenneth Galbraith. Medoff even prescribed an antidote. Despite numerous national reviews, the enormity of the economic crisis he described never sunk in among the powers-that-be until now, 12 years later.

Recent newspaper cancellation notices of contracts with Associated Press should also be sounding an alarm. The impact of a diminished AP would have a staggering impact on the flow of reliable information, because, unlike the few other remaining wire services, AP carries a combination of professional staff input here and abroad as well as the culling of the best stories from its media members. News websites will be pretty paltry without AP.

Just as layoffs and buyouts in newsrooms have become commonplace, the potential cutback of the AP service for economic reasons by mainstream media seems to ignore public-service responsibilities.

Is anyone alarmed, or is this like a tree falling in the forest?

Civic media may not be the only antidote to the dwindling number of reporters and photo journalists on the news scene, but it seems to have come along in the nick of time. Can it supplant the calibre of coverage provided by AP some day? Maybe not, at least in the near future, but civic media is gaining in importance and numbers every day. How can it better respond to what now seems to be a two-alarmer?

Training is the key. High schools and colleges can play a role by emphasizing all aspects of critical thinking and by providing outlets inside and outside the classroom for those showing aptitude for various forms of expression. Community groups also can pitch in with venues and support.

Meanwhile, more mentoring is now vital for all levels of civic media. It's no longer like playing in a sand box. The public is thirsting for fair, diversified, accurate, thorough information. There is a need to know--and a right to know.

Perhaps some of those who have taken buyouts can get into the mix.

Some models already are emerging.

Global Voices (globalvoicesonline.org) states that part of its function is to "facilitate the emergence of new citizens’ voices through training, online tutorials, and publicizing the ways in which open-source and free tools can be used safely by people around the world to express themselves."

Chi*Town Daily News (chitowndailynews.org) is trying to integrate professionals with neighborhood journalists, with a goal of providing training to the latter.

Since the Melrose, Mass., SilverStringers started in 1996, the MIT Media Lab has provided ongoing technical and journalistic training that has spilled over into other community publishing groups, most notably Rye Reflections in my hometown of Rye, N.H.

Conferences and seminars that bring together bloggers and other civic practitioners not only improve quality but also offer guidance for issues such as ethics.

Is anyone else alarmed? Is civic media up to the task?

(Jack Driscoll was wire-service reporter in the 1950s for United Press which became United Press International after the International News Service (INS) failed. In 2000 UPI was purchased by World Communications, owned by Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Driscoll is now a member of the C4FCM Advisory Board.)