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What is Web 2.0 and why do (some) journalists fear it?

Friday | April 25, 2008 | 5:50 pm  

I thought the guys from the O’Reilly Insight Group did a really good job of summing up what “Web 2.0″ is:

• Listening - To your customers, readers, partners, etc.
• Participation - Joining into the conversations and relationships that those folks are having, and letting them participate in your conversations and relationships.
• Transparency - Opening yourself up, being honest about mistakes
• Ongoing inquiry - Continually asking your audience about what they’re looking for from you, ways to improve, etc.

Don’t those four points sound an awful lot like things that are core to journalism?

• Listening - To your sources, to your readers.
• Participation - Providing information to create better participants in a democracy. Participating in the society via an Op/Ed page.
• Transparency - Isn’t it every journalist’s goal to make as much of the public and private sectors transparent to the community they serve?
• Ongoing inquiry - Beat reporting, investigative journalism. We are an industry of ongoing inquiries.

So if “Web 2.0″ and journalism are so similar, then why are so many journalists afraid or hostile toward “2.0″ features on their Web site and “2.0″ sites in general?

I don’t have an answer, and the Web doesn’t need any more speculation, so I’ll just put that question out there and hope some smarter folks have answers.

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