Interesting article about a CJR conference on consumer reporting and social media—how consumer reporting helped to spur the consumer rights movement, and how that's changing with user-generated online reviews. An example of a function that the nonprofit/alternative press has previously filled that is now morphing…

"The question is: What happens to the music itself when the way to build a career shifts from recording songs that ordinary listeners want to buy to making music that marketers can use? That creates pressure, subtle but genuine, for music to recede: to embrace the element of vacancy that makes a good soundtrack so unobtrusive, to edit a lyric to be less specific or private, to leave blanks for the image or message the music now serves. Perhaps the song will still make that essential, head-turning first impression, but it won’t be as memorable or independent."

Check me out on Radio Berkman re. emerging trends in media