Thursday squibs

Catching up on a couple of days worth of surfing:

• Media Democracy Day Is Here. Events here in Vancouver Friday afternoon, promoting alternatives to the increasingly concentrated mainline media and trying to bring issues like ownership and neutrality to the fore. May make a perfect citj story: I”m not sure legacy media will be there in big numbers, but I’m prepared to be surprised.
• Newspapers Are Not Dead. A post passed along by A Photo a Day which seems to argue that what will help save newspapers is better photojournalism. Somewhat interesting argument, but it’s the wrong one: we need to be talking about saving journalism, not the paper it’s printed on. It ignores the fact, too, that clichéd photojournalism is as responsible as bland coverage is for the disconnect with readers.
• Covering the Fires: Record Number of iReports. According to MediaBistro, eyewitness reports to CNN from the California wild fires are setting records. Not surprising, given the locale, the number of people affected, etc. Should be another reminder to publications that they need to have their citizen witness ducks in a row.
• ProPublica has resumes from every major news organization. The demand for non-profit produced investigative reporting is yet to be proved, but there seems to be a little doubt about the interest in doing the investigating.