Now that the title perhaps grabbed your interest...

This may be old hat to you veteran bloggers, but anyway. Forgive the initial use of the phrase "big media", but this is really not about big media. Instead I think it has some bearing on what Dina often says about conversations.

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"Big media ... treated the news as a lecture. We told you what the news was. You bought it, or you didn't. You might write us a letter; we might print it ... it was a world that bred compacency and arrogance on our part. It was a gravy train while it lasted, but it was unsustainable.

"Tomorrow's news reporting and production will be more of a conversation or a seminar. The lines will blur between producers and consumers, changing the role of both in ways we're only beginning to grasp. The communication network itself will be a medium for everyone's voice, not just the few who can afford to buy multimillion-dollar printing presses, launch satellites, or win the government's permission to squat on the public airways."

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All from Dan Gillmor's book, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People for the People -- taken from a review of the book in the Guardian Weekly, November 26-December 2, 2004.