Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 12/23/2009 – 2:07pm
Session Reporter: Chris Nelson
Conversationalist 1: Chris Nelson
Conversationalist 2: Bill Mitchell
For me, one of the primary takeaways from our talk was that we’re have a “self-selection” problem in our country. That is, from the communities we live in, to the news we choose to read, too often we decide to surround ourselves with those who think along similar lines. Or maybe that’s too soft – we surround ourselves with those who subscribe to the same orthodoxy? Bill quoted someone saying, “We’re at a point where we can’t talk with each other if we don’t agree.” Do we listen better in these self-selected circles? Neither of us thinks we do. How do our new media channels and new media tools address this?
On a related note, I was excited to see The Seattle Times start to incorporate the work of blogs like Myballard and the West Seattle Blog into their pages. But we still need the Times itself to take that larger regional and national perspective. I’m a believer in localization, but I also fear we’re losing the larger picture too often. And by larger picture, I don’t only mean geographically, but also just in a sense of common ground.
We’re looking forward to meeting people who are thinking about these ideas and where we’re headed during the JTM get together.
I’ll let Bill weigh in with other comments if he has them. Thanks again for connecting us. We’ll see you in January!