The best media blogs?

Iain Dale has a list of the Top 30 Media Blogs as voted for by 1,100 people. Here is the Top Ten:

1. Spectator Coffee House
2. Ben Brogan
3. Three Line Whip
4. Boulton & Co
5. Nick Robinson
6. Comment Central
7. Paul Linford
8. David Cornock
9. Peter Hitchens
10. Melanie Phillips

Citizen journalism?

Terence Eden uses Qik, a video-streaming website, to film being stopped and searched under the Terrorism Act at Waterloo station. He has a blog post about his film here.

Picked up via Joanna Geary.

Links for today: Media

• 'Mission to Explain': Sounding a little bit like John Birt and Peter Jay in the 1970s, Jay Rosen reckons that journalists should make explanation, rather than information their number one priority.

• Jeff Jarvis wonders whether editors are a necessary luxury item. He thinks 'yes' but reckons the role of editor will need to change:
  

"There is still a role for editors, but it changes. There is a need to add context and fill holes in understanding - by using links. As we move from an economy of scarcity in media to one of abundance, there is a need to curate: to find the best and brightest from an infinite supply of witnesses, commentators, photographers and experts. As news becomes collaborative, editors will need to assemble networks from among staff and the public; that makes them community organisers. I also believe editors should play educator, helping to improve the work of the network."

• More evidence of bloggers acting as a 'fifth estate'. Here they point out some holes in a story about a 93 year old author. (Though in this case the BBC's Chris Vallance does an equally good job.)

• Paul Bradshaw flags up an article in a book - I know, how quaint - on the way political bloggers 'routinise' their work.
  

Random quote on Journalism 2

"I fixed my twelve pages with a paper clip and balanced their weight in my hand. What I had written wasn't true. It wasn't written in the pursuit of truth, it wasn't science. It was journalism, magazine journalism, whose ultimate standard was readability."

Joe Rose, fictional science journalist
in Ian McEwan's Enduring Love

Cyberwar, blogging and Russo-Georgia War 2008

I've put a post of links on the Frontline Club blog about the conflict between the Russians and the Georgians.

It's hardly the most important news at the present time, given the number of casualties being incurred in the region of South Ossetia, but the Georgians have been setting up Google blogs in an attempt to ward off Russian cyber assaults. More details here.

(More on) Twitter and the Bangalore bomb blasts at the Frontline

Part III on this topic is about whether Twitter 'hypes' the news.

Twitter - I'm going to carry on writing about it. Sorry.

Jemima Kiss, at the Guardian, has just written a post telling people to get over Twitter breaking major news stories and beating other media. I agree. Though I bet there are hundreds of journos out there who have no idea what it is - easy to forget when you're living and working in a digital bubble.

But she does also say that 'the interesting phenomenon is that because this communication is public, it can be used as a source'. Which, I think, has actually been much less explored.

So I've been covering how Twitter might have been used by journalists to cover the Bangalore blasts in a series of posts on the Frontline blog. It's a little case study.

Part One is on the use of Twitter as to find eyewitness accounts and online reportage

Part Two is on verification

Part Three will be coming tomorrow: Does Twitter 'hype' the news?

But if I'm boring you: Stick '"Daniel Bennett" King's College London' into new search engine, Cuil.com, and it'll find you some completely unrelated information about "mating cell integrity". You might find this more interesting than my ramblings about Twitter.