Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution Transforming Cultures and Communities in the Age of Instant Access

Newspaper Research Journal, Fall 2003 by Stepno, Bob

Rheingold points out what these new media lack in comparison to newspaper journalism: The authority and reputation for professional excellence we associate with The New York Times, The Washington Post and other established news sources (at least on their better days). That reputation isn't a matter of printing presses or Nikons or TV news helicopters and hairdressers; it comes from knowing how to use the tools to create factual, interesting stories that make the First Amendment worth having.

For anyone who missed that point, Rheingold emphasized it this summer in an Online Journalism Review article calling for a more widespread journalistic literacy: "Journalism, if it is to deserve the name, is not about the quality of the camera, but about the journalist's intuition, integrity, courage, inquisitiveness, analytic and expressive capabilities, and above all, the trust the journalist has earned among readers.

"Good journalists discern compelling stories in events, cultivate and mobilize networks of sources, double check and triple check facts, develop reputations that can only be won by getting the story right week after week, year after year."

That sounds like a pretty good charge to journalism students and educators, whether they're aiming at print, the television screen or the newsfeed on my Palm Pilot.

Rheingold's book is also a good starting point for journalism researchers. While he is writing for a popular-press audience, he believes in that ancient form of hypertext, the footnote-sprinkling more than 600 of them throughout the well-indexed 266-page book, as well as providing updates at .

Stepno has taught print and online journalism at Emerson College in Boston for four years.

His doctoral dissertation (UNC Chapel Hill, 2003) traces the evolution of an online news site.