Thursday I arrived to a steamy day (and frizzy hair). The conference had very literally been kicked off the night before with veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas delivering a barn-burner of a keynote address. You can watch video of her here, and you can catch my frizzy hair here as I take part in Thursday evening's Can Old Media Be Part of the New News Ecology? panel.

Michael Skoler, the Managing Director of Minnesota Public Radio and presenter of this panel discussion, is at the cutting edge of something called Public Insight Journalism and says:

The future of mainstream media depends on building relationships with members of the audience.

One small step for a news man; one giant leap for newskind. :o)

Dinner-and-Discussion on Thursday night was a rich affair as the heavier hitters (ironically the tiny row of men below) took a shot at answering the question, Can Ownership Make a Difference?  

Before their introduction, net neutrality came up. Worries that Internet may go the way of radio in the '30's; television in the '50's; and cable in the 80's -- where media conglomerates take control for their own needs. Check out savetheinternet.com for more.

The next morning, Paul Thomas and I were part of the Why Citizen Journalism? panel moderated by the lovely Tish Grier (who gave us a really lovely nod yesterday). Fellow panelists: Lise LaPage of iBrattleboro; Eesha Williams author of Grassroots Journalism; Lisa Williams of H20town.

As of right now, there doesn't appear to be any video of this panel floating around, which is a shame. This was the panel where I thought we made our best contributions, and my hair was only moderately frizzy this day.

Following the panel discussion, Matthew and Amy from Cambridge Community Television asked if I could sit for an interview. Wow, talk about star treatment; we'll see how well I held up to their 'grilling' in a week or two when the program gets aired.

Now that all of my performances were over, it was time to take in all of the other offerings. Great continuation of the CJ track: Citizen Journalism in Action: A Practicum. A bit of a debate over what a CJ really is. Are they 1) former journalists, 2) current activists, 3) people who happen upon a story and cover it with their pictures/accounts? Are they researchers and not just reporters? How important is fact-checking? Editing?

In the end, I believe that citizen journalists are all unique, every single one of them as diverse and varied as any blogging (or real-life) community or person. And every online community does its reporting a bit differently -- and that's ok. We're not competing with one another. Each of us has a specific and special role to fill; as long as what we're doing is needed and responded to by others, then we should consider what we're doing a great success -- and service.

We're on the leading edge of some magnificent changes in what a person and online community can accomplish with the current technology;  with email and the Internet and video cameras and audio recorders in cell phones, it seems just about anyone who wants to report the news can.

A few tips for good citizen journalism:

• Practice truthfulness, tactfulness, and transparency.
  
• Engage readers by appealing to their capacity to reason.
  
• Aim to write something riveting, but:
  
• Write in accessible, native language (i.e., if your readers are techies, go ahead and use the jargon, otherwise don't).
  
• Keep in mind that your writing may be translated into other languages by computers; keep it clean and simple.

And don't forget about your power.

As an individual free of corporate oversight and threats to your livelihood, you're in a place of power. Report on what you're passionate about to help bring about the changes you wish to see in the world, the nation, and your local community.

CJ in Action panel: Chris Grotke (who, along with Lise LePage -- both of iBrattleboro.com -- acted as our CJ Track leaders. ^5 for all of your hard work on our behalf!); Maureen Mann, Philbrick James Forum; Gordon Joseloff of WestportNow.com; Daniel Barlow of the Rutland Herald; and apologies that I didn't jot down the 5th panelist, a late addition not listed on the program.

One of the last sessions I attended was Merging Forms: Is the Medium Still the Message? (See it here.) This Saturday morning session was filled to the brim with useful information on everything a modern citizen journalist might need to know in order to get their content online.

Steve Garfield of super awesome Rocketboom opened things up in a warm and inviting way; awe-inspiring Paul Grabowicz from the University of California-Berkley had us examine the choices we make when we use technology to report a story; and modern media mogul Robb Montgomery (who I was lucky enough to share a rental car with on my way over to the conference from BDL airport) of the VisualEditors empire closed things out by giving us some tangible tips and tools to getting our job done creatively.

Some handy links to explore:

• Hipcast - Post audio and video. Can record an mp3 by simply phoning it in and recording a message.
  
• Loudblog - Pod development software that allows audio commenting.
  
• Berkley's Five Steps to Multimedia Reporting - Paul Grabowicz' great instruction.
  
• Learn All About Video Blogging (vlogging) - this is a wealth of info Steve Garfield compiled.
  
• Jumpcut - upload, mix, and edit your own video.
  
• VideoEgg - another powerful online video editing option.

Robb Montgomery pointed out today's digital expections and attitudes when it comes to visiting a website.

Content should be:

• Up-to-date
  
• On-demand
  
• Free

Don't forget:

• Media is disposable
  
• Young media creatures are multitaskers and learned HTML in grade school.

To close the weekend out, Bill Densmore and Norm Sims hosted a closing talk called Speak to the Group, giving me a perfect opportunity to do what I love best: snap photos of some of the people attending. You can watch the whole session here to get an idea of what we all got out of the weekend.

Thanks, ePluribus Media for another great opportunity -- and thanks to everyone below for making the weekend a lot of fun!

You can check out many more of the sessions captured on video here. Check out the Media Giraffe Project's wiki page for a wide variety of info and updates here.

And a final note: Cho and I were interviewed by Wayne MacPhail of Rabble Podcast Network, Canada. Will add the link to that when it's available here.