More than 2000 attendants converged on Memphis last weekend to attend the third National Conference for Media Reform, hosted by Free Press. In an effort to spread the lessons learned, we have collected a few highlights from panelists who addressed the feasibility of online communities as alternatives to top-down mainstream media. Full mp3 audio recordings of the various conference sessions are available here.

Citizen Media

At Friday’s “Quality Journalists=Quality Journalism” discussion, Linda Moore from the Commercial Appeal in Memphis decried that mainstream media reporters only have time for a “he said, she said” version of coverage since ever-expanding media conglomerates hire less and less investigative reporters, and instead, rely on a shared assignment editor.

Audience member Jim Joyce, Vice President of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians echoed this concern. He gave the example of Los Angeles, in which MSNBC, CNBC, network news, and the local television station have “homogenized the news assignment desk of all four operations … and are cross utilizing people in the field.”

Perhaps this is where crowdsourcing could really come in, allowing citizens to add value to a story. “Decertifying the press,” as Jay Rosen calls it, could help create “media that strengthens our democracy,” a phrase that FCC Commissioner Michael Copps used at Friday’s conference rally.

While at the National Conference for Media Reform in Tennessee, NewAssignment.Net contributor Tanya Paperny caught up with Joan McCarter, better known as “McJoan” at the Daily Kos where she is a contributing editor and blogger. Joan was attending the conference as a speaker (MP3 of her panel on social networking) but took the time to answer questions about how citizen journalism is continuing to mature.

Tanya: One of the common critiques of Internet media and citizen journalism is that readers and viewers go to sources that they are comfortable with. How can online communities, bloggers, and citizen journalists build trust and name recognition, especially if some use pseudonyms?

Joan “McJoan” McCarter: Right now, we’re the new kids on the block. Because we do forcefully take on the traditional media when we see them falling down, they’re not in love with us. A lot of the hits you see on us are because we’re taking them on directly. As far as the anonymity issues goes, I don’t know why necessarily knowing someone’s name behind the thoughts makes so much of a difference. I can’t help but think back to the founding fathers and all of those pamphlets they produced while we were still under English reign. They wrote under pseudonyms to protect their privacy, to protect their anonymity, to protect their lives. Were the thoughts that they were presenting any less revolutionary, any less important, any less critical to the founding of our country because they were produced under pseudonyms? I don’t think so.

T: Can you think of some examples of the maturity of the blogosphere or any examples of people or projects that have gained trust, name recognition and acknowledgment of their skill?

J: I see it less in terms of traditional media recognition than in actual achievements. And those achievements are doing things like really changing the face of the 2006 election, of helping push Iraq as the primary issue. Whether that will gain us more acceptance as a journalistic source, I don’t know. But it will sure give us more recognition as a force in American politics.