Journalism: Hop on the Cluetrain

After seven weeks in the US for the elections, I’m behind in everything: Eating, sleeping and blogging. I’m going to be writing a lot about the experience and lessons learned in terms of the technology and in terms of the journalism. But, before I get into deep thoughts about the trip, I saw something that really resonated with me as I watched how social media covered these elections and where traditional media was sometimes successful in adapting to the world of social media and also how much further traditional media still has to go.

Tim Eby of WOSU, who I reconnected with at the Columbus Social Media Cafe, just tweeted:

Retweeting @amber_rae amazing social media presentation @andyangelos http://tinyurl.com/5eqmxg

The presentation by Andy Angelos, quotes the Cluetrain Manifesto:

Get out of the way so internetworked employees can converse directly with internetworked markets. The result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in.

Just so a leap of logic isn’t necessary because I’ve found sometimes I make connections that others in my industry don’t:

Get out of the way so internetworked journalists can converse directly with internetworked people formerly known as the audience. The result will be a new kind of journalism. And it will be the most exciting journalism that we have ever engaged in.

That’s the lesson that I’ve learned from my trip. Discuss.