Professional journalists at loggerheads over social media

At the B2B Marketing Awards last night, my colleague Lance and I were explaining Prompt's (award-winning!) social media monitoring service to one of our fellow gala diners.

"Well, that all sounds marvellous," came the response, "but it's beyond me. I barely know how to text."

Now you might think that with blogging celebrating its ten-year anniversary this year, and Facebook being touted as the advertising and word-of-mouth marketing platform du jour, today's marketers might be more clued up by now about the importance and value of social media.

But if you're more like our table-mate from last night, you can at least take heart that a lot of journalists are equally confused about the 'participatory internet'. The past ten days or so have seen an extraordinary exchange of views about the impact of Web 2.0 on professional journalism, resulting in a high-profile resignation from the National Union of Journalists.

It all started with an opinion article in The Journalist, the NUJ's official publication, entitled 'Web 2.0 Is Rubbish'. In it, the union's National Executive Council representative for new media journalists, Donnacha DeLong, argues that media organisations that embrace Web 2.0 are undermining professional journalism by burying 'authoritative' content under deluges of comments from 'average people' (that's the readers, viewers and listeners), to the extent that some organisations (DeLong doesn't specify which ones, but I imagine the Guardian's Comment is Free site is one of the intended targets) seem to want to remove the journalism entirely and just post comments from readers.

Like Andrew Keen, DeLong appears to believe that only professional journalists are qualified to provide authoritative news and comment, and that amateurs with blogs and digital cameras should not be allowed to assume the role traditionally played by journalists. His position plays into a larger debate about whether journalists should be required by their employers to become multimedia experts, capable of taking and uploading their own photos, editing their own videos and podcasts, and writing blog posts, in an effort to mirror the way that online publishing as a whole is heading.

The NUJ appears to want to protect its members against having to learn and use these new skills, but many journalists believe that the union should instead be helping its members to embrace new Web 2.0 techniques and technologies, otherwise their jobs will be at risk. The Telegraph's online communities editor Shane Richmond and Guardian columnist and blogger Jeff Jarvis both provide critiques of the NUJ's perceived reactionism, while Guardian media commentator Roy Greenslade has gone one step further and resigned publicly from the union.

So for any PR people out there struggling to deal with the new world of social media, don't forget that things aren't all that clear-cut on the other side of the fence, either.

Prompt wins B2B Marketing award

We won! Woohoo!

European governments move to control Web 2.0

For a long time, the blogs, virtual worlds and social media sites of the Web 2.0 world have been legislative no-man's-lands: too new, strange and complicated for governments and regulatory authorities to understand.

I'm talking about Western governments, of course; governments in less tolerant places like China, Egypt and Burma have had no qualms about shutting down dissenting blogs, throwing bloggers into prison or even pulling the plug on the entire internet when things go wobbly.

Here in the West, though, we cleave to quaint notions of liberty, democracy and freedom of speech, which is why our governments are having a hard time figuring out what to do about the fact that when millions of people are let loose to express themselves online, unpleasantness inevitably results.

Following then-Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell's appeal in May for British bloggers to behave in a more civilised fashion, the Times reports this week that the UK government is sharpening its interest in illegal goings-on inside virtual worlds, including identity theft, sex offences and - somewhat ominously - 'anti-social behaviour'. Lord Triesman of the Ministry for Innovation, Universities and Skills said at this week's Virtual Worlds Forum that there was "a certain inevitability" about the prospect of increased government control of online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft, although he didn't say whether any specific legislation was planned.

In Italy, meanwhile, bloggers have been up in arms about a proposed new law that appears to require anyone with a blog to register with the country's communications regulator as a media site. The act of registration would involve the purchase of official stamps, which is being interpreted as a tax on bloggers. Many Italians see the draft law as a personal vendetta on the part of the government against Beppe Grillo, an influential political blogger known for exposing government corruption. It remains to be seen whether the law will be enacted, and if so, whether it will indeed render any unregistered blog illegal, but it does suggest that the Italian government has been looking at blogs and not liking what it sees.

The main sticking point in both cases is whether a blog or virtual world that is hosted outside the country can be subject to that country's laws. If a blog is hosted on Google's US-based Blogspot servers, like this one is, can the Italian government exercise any jurisdiction over it? The same goes for Brits behaving badly in Second Life - and that's without even considering the difficulty of correctly identifying and apprehending a real-life perpetrator who is masquerading under another name in a world that has no physical substance. For a lot of police officers and government officials, I suspect that real life's already complicated enough.

And the prize for shortest awards ceremony goes to...

...The Flackenhacks, which by my reckoning took about 15 minutes from start to finish.

Some of this was thanks to the speed-compering skills of Weber Shandwick's Paul Wooding, who was selected on the basis of an impressive ability to tell computer jokes to firemen.

It was also partly due to the fact that in some categories (mainly 'Hacks' Choice of PR Person of the Year' and 'Loveliest Client') there were no nominations whatsoever. Read into that what you will.

Still, hearty congratulations to the winners, and a special round of applause to Microsoft's Phil Devery for the best acceptance speech I've ever heard.

I nicked off to the pub afterwards, but the party seemed to be still in full swing when I passed the Audi Forum in a taxi just now. Good work.

Best consumer tech publication goes to...

...Stuff, who, like most of tonight's winners, couldn't be here in person, but sent a text message of gratitude.

Oh, the glamour.

Best staff hack gong goes to...

...Phil Muncaster of IT Week, who should definitely have won Best Haircut as well.

It's getting very hot in here now

No sign of Stephen Davies, the mysterious 'Third Man' of tonight's blogging troupe. That just leaves the tag team of myself and Mr Smith, and he's got more gossip than I have. Must... make... something... up...

Ooh no, the awards have started!

Peter Kirwan is on stage...TWL still apparently missing in action...wonder if he will put in an appearance at all...