AC FORUM 2008: Responsibility: Media and Companies

17.11 — We are preparing to kick off the final panel of the day here in the main hall. We are pleased to welcome Daniel Wermus of Média 21, Bernard Robert-Charrue of Dev.tv, Vicente Domingo of Humania TV and Xosé Ramil of Fundación Chandra/Ekoos.

I will also be making a run down the stairs over this hour to check in on the Web 2.0 workshop led by my colleague Lise Guennal, who maintains the French version of AC Blog, and Pablo Salzman of rethos.com.

Click below for more.

17.32 — Daniel Wemus of has described the role of socially responsible companies and media at the intersection point of social, economic and political forces, and the ways in which Média 21 seeks to promote healthy and attentive enterprises by its exposures.

17.47 — I’ve just been downstairs to check in with Pablo who has completed a presentation of his platform rethos.com.  Echoing JFK’s comments earlier in the day, Pablo has noted the importance of interactive Web 2.0 content-sharing platforms in engaging younger generations.  Anyone who has spent an afternoon giving a technology tutorial to a parent or grandparent may worry that our elders are in some ways being left out; however it is important to remember that for the young generations which are our future, traditional and static media such as newsletters simply will not maintain a following.

17.54 — Mr Bernard Robert-Charrue of Dev.tv, with which Robert Lamb is also associated, has declared that the role of his platform is to air programs which are not “digestible” by the various apparatuses of big media.  Within this constraint he maintains one goal: the broadest distribution possible.

17.58 — The moderator of this final discussion, Guillaume Chenevière, has now closed the debate.  My purpose is best served if I point you in the direction of Dev.tv, Humania TV and Fundación Chandra/Ekoos for more on the nature of the intermediary role of these players.  The link to Média 21 is above.

The final item on today’s schedule if a presentation of the Alternative Channel editorial committee members: Mr Marc Tessier, Mr Guillaume Chenevière and Mr Thierry Maillet.

Hey Jack,
This is really something.  Your blog is great.  I wanted to add, I just read your piece on the history of olympics as politics--it was absolutely a fantastic piece, all the news of any professionally written article, but clearly with your own style, a lovely ordering of details, and a total pleasure to read.  It could be published in any medium anywhere.  I’m going to keep browsing.

To be honest, Jack, I’m not sure if this area is for posting comments or emailing the blog to someone else--please clarify, or better yet, make it clear on the website.  It’s a little confusing to me.

Bye for now.

’Global journalism’ is a wonderful idea but to me global journalism goes hand in hand with globalization.  How can you create a single resource of the ‘truth’? This is always ‘the truth’ of the editorial guidelines set down by the publication.  What is of interest to a ‘global readership’ is always going to be what corroborates or criticizes this ideology of the publication.  But it’s a nice dream.

@benedict

That’s a good point but I think it’s a little premature to criticize global journalism: it doesn’t exist yet.  But who is the audience for global journalism and what do they expect?  I’d say, other journalists are the primary audience.  The key is to create a way for journalists to get a better idea of what’s important in the world and how to make clear the way all peoples are connected.  A news source that shows me how we are all connected, every day, is a new source that will make a difference.

That’s a good point about journalists watching other journalists.  I guess the Associated Press and the Newswire is supposed to work that way, but no journalist has that kind of time.  If journalists are going to pay attention to these types of sources they need to know that there is already an audience that demands it.  It goes both ways.  A bit of a catch-22.

<quote>That’s a good point but I think it’s a little premature to criticize global journalism: it doesn’t exist yet.</quote>

Well, I guess I’m not sure what you mean, or what anyone means, by ‘global journalist’.  But there are a lot of web 2.0 projects out there that are really amazing:

http://current.com/

Current.com!  I’ll skip the ‘Al Gore Vanity Project’ tirade...well, to be fair, Current.tv has gotten a lot better, but doesn’t really get that much traffic?  It hasn’t really made much of an impact.

There are some amazing people working at current.com.  But the fact is, there is a real hunger for a ‘crowd-powered’ media that is has something to say AND agrees that it has something to learn.  Check out:

http://www.ourmedia.org

There are so many out there and if you want to feel like you’re connected to the world you need to do your part where you can.

<quote>There are so many out there and if you want to feel like you’re connected to the world you need to do your part where you can.</quote>

Well said Jamie!  It’s all our responsibility as members of a global democratic movement.  We need to expand our idea of what it means to be an active citizen.  It’s everyone’s obligation to vote, stay informed, AND contribute to a global journalism.  We need to get into that mindset and change what we consider to be the responsibility of a truly socially-conscious individual.  Recycling, watching the 10pm local news, carpooling on weekends, and giving to charities at Christmas is not enough!  It’s too easy to be complacent and yet feel like you’re making a difference.

Are you guys watching the live video stream?  I’m not sure who said it, but they seem to be suggesting that Shell (as in Shell oil) is a legitimately “Green” company.

‘Green’ is not the same as ‘Greenwashing’.

http://understory.ran.org/2008/03/05/greenwash-of-the-week-hey-shell-no-means-no/

That guy in the Shell Greenwash video is annoying.  I think the speaker at the conference was simply referring to the fact that Shell has been ‘greenwashing’ itself since the early 80s. It’s really on the cutting edge in that regard.  If you buy that the ‘greenwashing’ has turned Shell into the best example of a bad lot or it’s just putting a good face on the same old greedy corporation...that’s hard to say.  But Shell has done a lot to help legitimate NGOs.

<quote>But Shell has done a lot to help legitimate NGOs.</quote>

Link?

I don’t know about Shell’s relationship with truly autonomous and productive NGOs, but I do think it’s worth saying that sometimes Greenwashing isn’t all bad.  We all need oil, that’s a fact.  And there is still a lot of it out there.  If public pressure has forced a company to adopt a ‘green’ campaign, then that means that they’re paying attention to public pressure--the net result is you have a company paying a lot of attention to the media.  The key is to make sure that the facts can always be found once the cyclone of spin passes by.  That’s where the media comes in and that’s where we come in.  All I’m saying is that corporate watchdogs do not have to be anti-corporate.

I see more and more companies are getting into web 2.0 which is the right move considering its popularity and user interaction option

I found this through the “wind farm” article on newwest and it is nice to know how this site was started. I love the site! A ton of information on all of the states I love!

nice blog!