Ari Melber has written a great synthesis for The Nation about the new study “A Tale of Two Blogospheres” produced by a consortium of researchers from Harvard, Yale and Berkeley.

The study details the the structure (and resulting impact) of the left vs. right blogosphere or as they put it, “evidence of an association between ideological affiliation and the technologies, institutions, and practices of participation across political blogs.” This study completely coincides with the theories we lay out and the stories (and lessons learned) of Firedoglake, Feministing and Talking Points Memo that we detail out in our book Beyond The Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media.
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Cross Posted at The Media Consortium.

A few weeks ago, The Media Consortium held its annual member meeting in NYC. Despite the raging blizzard that hit the city the day of the meeting (what timing!) over 70 individuals from more than two dozen organizations traveled from across the country for the two day event. This meeting marked the fifth anniversary of The Media Consortium, which was a great time to reflect on where we’ve been as an organization and a sector and how we are going to move forward together. The meeting gave us a sneak peek of the big changes to expect for the progressive media sector during the next few years.
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By Tracy Van Slyke and Josh Stearns
Cross-Posted at SaveTheNews.org

If 2009 was a year of study and debate about the future of journalism, 2010 must be a year of action. We must come together around a core set of ideas to create a better ecosystem for sustainable and high-impact journalism. Based on the various reports and conferences from the past year, we’ve compiled the five most important areas that journalism organizations (and those invested in the future of journalism) must tackle in 2010—and suggest some initial steps to begin moving forward.
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Today ends the Federal Trade Commission’s two-day, (mis)appropriately titled, “How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” summit. More appropriate: How Will Journalism Evolve in the Internet Age? Don’t like that? Send in your suggestions.

David Carr’s beautiful eulogy for the old media system and acknowledgment of the new, sums up journalism’s turning point quite gracefully. But from what I’ve been following with the summit yesterday (twitter hashtag: #ftcnews), the old guard was still doing a lot of kvetching.

In tandem with speaking at the summit, Arianna Huffington had a great, no-holds barred, post yesterday on why the old media (read: old white guys) need to get over themselves, let go of the past and start assimilating the possibilities that the future offers. But I think we can take Arianna’s post a couple steps further.

Let’s go in, shall we?
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