Suw Charman on Where's the We in WeMedia?

Suw went to the WeMedia conference in London, and really, really hated it:

[from Where's the we in WeMedia?.

[...] this was a conference basically about big media and its relationship to 'citizen journalism', (a term I am coming to loathe - I've started calling it 'participatory media' which is a bit of a mouthful but, I think, more accurate), but there was only one blogger on stage, and no podcasters, vidbloggers, or photojournalists. Instead, the speakers were almost entirely from the mainstream media, primarily the BBC, Reuters and the Media Center, all sitting on stage talking as if they know what is going on.

I've news for you, guys. You don't. You don't have a clue.

There were two entirely separate conferences happening - the one that went on onstage and amongst the big media attendees, and one that happened in the backchannel and in the coffee breaks amongst the more clueful attendees. And never the twain shall meet. They should have, because there were three 'online curators' - including myself - who were gathering questions and commentary from chat and the blogs. In the morning, the conference allowed one of the curators to actually speak up at the end of each session, but the moderators frequently cut him off, and he hardly had any time to flesh out the points that were being made, or encourage more discussion from the floor.

She continues in this disparaging tone far longer than the conference is due based on its merits, which seemed few if any. You can see her extemporaneous presentation Why WeMedia Sucked.

[Update: Hugh Fraser has some choice words, as well:

[from Mind Numbing Conference]

Far from being “We Media” it is “They Media” sitting up on the stage and talking without much knowledge about citizen journalism. For a moment it came alive when they had a blogger on the stage - Rachel North who was inspired to blog by being caught up in the London bombing. The rest has been open-ended and vague. The most cringe-worthy moment came when a “young” 31 year old BBC smarmy presenter introduced some “digital assassins” ie bloggers (some of whom work from the BBC), who sat down at the tables with the old fuddy-duddies so that they could talk to real bloggers. Oh God! That was the most embarrassing moment of any conference I have ever been to.

]

tags: wemedia, suw+charman, artisan+jourmalism, mainstream+media

Comments

[Word Freak]

In a pre-conference post about the We Media conference, Suw wrote:

"The thing I am worried about is that this is going to turn into a happy clappy back-slappy smugfest, with the Beeb and Reuters competing to see whose day (they each have one) has the biggest names, who can draw the biggest crowds, and who trusts who most. They already have a survey that they've completed, and which they'll be promoting at the event, which shows people trust national TV news the most and bloggers very little. So much for 'citizen journalism' being a symbiosis of equals - this sounds more like 'we Media, you Jane'."

Suw's a lot of fun to read and watch, particularly so during the actual London event, but is she more part of the problem than the solution? At We Media, she was an online curator, one of the people the media center asked to help manage the online action, a "bridge" to helping narrow the divide between MSM and bloggers. But it doesn't seem like she used her position to close that gap. Just the opposite. She had pre-concieved notions walking into the conference and it seems - from her posts during and after the conference, and her appearance at the fringe event - she did a lot to make them come true.