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.

Here are a few excerpts from Melber’s piece.

“One of the most striking findings is structural: liberal blogs provide audience participation options at triple the rate of conservative sites. That means visitors to progressive sites are more empowered to contribute entire posts to the “front page,” and more likely to have their contributions or comments highlighted before potentially hundreds of thousands of readers.

According to the authors, the netroots’ early embrace of deeper participation platforms, coupled with progressive bloggers interest in mobilizing fundraising and specific actions, helped prime the tactics and habits that supported the Democrats’ later web dominance (see chart).

The survey data does show that progressive bloggers were far more demanding of their readers.

One out of three liberal sites made direct fundraising pitches, and almost half asked readers to take some political action, according to a section of the study analyzing the top sixty-five blogs. On the right, however, only one out of twenty blogs pushed fundraising, and fewer than one out of five issued “calls to action.”

In the book, we tell the “impact story” of Firedoglake in a chapter titled “Assemble the Progressive Choir.” It demonstrates how FDL has successfully built a site that combines analysis, great acts of journalism, transparency, direct relationships between the bloggers and the community, a community forum, calls for action and fundraising (for the site itself and for political campaigns) to become one of the most successful progressive political blogs today.

I hope that both the blogosphere and the rapidly evolving legacy progressive media take heed from both the study and our book and continues with the much needed experimentation and implementation of community engagement, building and mobilization that will continue to build the overall impact of their journalism and messaging. It’s good for business. It’s good for impact.

This image summarizes the significant differences between the left and right blogosphere analyzed in the new study, “A Tale of Two Blogospheres.” (Click for larger image.)

Newspaper and newspaper groups are likely to default on their debt and go out of business next year — leaving “several cities” with no daily newspaper at all, Fitch Ratings says in a report on media released Wednesday.

So says a new article from Editor and Publisher.

My first thought upon reading. “Holy crap.” I’ve known this was a possibility for a while. Hell, I even know this is reality. I’m a media geek. I read and write about this stuff all day long. And I’m not even a direct consumer of local print journalism. I read Chicagoist, The Beachwood Reporter and Huffington Post Chicago to keep tabs on local news (which makes me part of the problem and the news consumer of the now/future).

But when in read in black and white (pixels) it actually does hit you in the gut. I’m thinking about:
1) The Journalists–where will they all go? This is a human and actual practical question. I’m not the first or last genius to ask this question, but I’m putting it out there again.

2) The Journalism–the simple answer is that the journalism will just happen online. But most of the online local stories I consume still overwhelmingly refers, links and uses journalism originating from print media.

Sure some of the reporting will move online but there’s not a huge amount of local newspapers sustaining itself online only. The local blogs I read don’t employ or pay a huge number of journalists the way traditional print media outlets do. That’s how they survive.

And while they’ve already been disappearing, brainpower and effort into local investigative reporting could continue to slip. Many would point to the range of community-funded journalism (like the new spot.us) as the answer, and while the idea is awesome, the proof is not in the pudding quite yet. And no, Maureen Dowd’s column on the future of local journalism is outsourcing, is NOT the answer.

There’s still a lot wrestle with here. Although I do look forward to how journalists and publishers can take advantage of online tools (i.e. mashups) to tell stories in a different, but no less in-depth way. For example, look at what these students did with the News 21 Initiative!

3) Seriously–What will people read on the the train or the bus to work???? That’s the place where people have time to consume news! I guess it’s onto pushing for increased mobile media and wireless service in underground train tunnels.

FYI: Did you know about themediaisdying twitter feed? Way to be depressed and up-to-date on all the latest media gossip at the same time…

Here are two different type of video news pieces to get your morning started off on an introspective foot. Now what I want you to think about is not just the news being conveyed, but how its being conveyed. The medium, the tone, the look, the breadth of information packed in a short time period…

MobLogic.tv is one of my favorite online news destinations. Each episode is less than 10 minutes (I can watch in one sitting), it’s fun, funky and snarky without trying too hard, it’s high quality video coupled with great news and analysis and the host Lindsay Campbell is smart, funny and easy to relate to (she’s cool like me!).
Funny and smart without saying a word…
Oh hell, let’s throw another one in so you can see her combo of personality and news reporting. I might have a girl news crush–but can you blame me?
Via, Jack and Jill, I found This Week in Blackness, a video site combining race reporting and analysis with a high dose of black (pun sorta intended) humor. There are some versions that are not safe for work, but check this one out.

And one more for the road… This video touches on the subject of the Obama Waffles reported on both by the American News Project and also reported on The Media Consortium’s own Adele Stan.

What do you think of these two different media products? Is there any progressive media doing anything remotely similar to this?

Bitch, one of my favorite all time feminist magazines, needs $40,000 to survive. Please donate, send around to people you know. I’m hitting the button to donate $100 right now.

The irony is that I’m sitting at the Park Center for Independent Media’s First symposium on The Future of Independent Media. The topic: Business, Revenue and Fundraising. The ongoing bane of our existence.