2007 Press Releases
U.S. Blog Guru Visits Urals
October 12, 2007
Dan Gillmor is a noted American technology writer and former columnist for the San Jose Mercury News and the author of We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People (2004, O'Reilly Media), chronicling how the Internet is helping independent journalists combat the consolidation of the traditional media. Dan Gillmor is currently the head of the Center for Citizen Media, jointly affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University Law School.
The new global phenomenon that he called ‘We the Media’ or citizen media has challenged the traditional role of media organizations as gatekeepers to a mass audience. He supports the latest manifestation of a longstanding maxim of American media, that freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press. With modern technology, all people can own a press—and the more voices, the better.
In Chelyabinsk, Mr. Gillmor spoke to nearly 100 people at the Chelyabinsk State University Journalism School and spoke to another 30 on web journalism in the afternoon at Chelyabinsk State University. He shared his vision of an interactive news environment with journalists, students, instructors, academics and the general public, in person and on-line. He spoke about how blogs and blogging have changed the very nature of the news and its delivery during an online conference at Chelyabinsk’s leading news portal 74.ru
The participants in the on-line chat were in 10 different Russian cities.
In Yekaterinburg, he met with leading business journalists and businessmen at the Discussion forum of Yekaterinburg leading business weekly Delovoy Kvartal. They discussed the technologies of personal and business promotion in the blogosphere. He also made a presentation about blogs as a conversational medium and about the social networks on the Internet at Urals State University. He spoke about the relationship between bloggers and journalists at a meeting with the staff of Delovoy Kvartal business weekly, where he answered questions about how blogs can offer deeper insights into the issues journalists cover in print editions and how journalists can use blogs in newsroom operations.
