Dave Kearns

Surprised by how you react to something. I’ve never been a big Larry Lessig fan (e.g., see Death of the Internet ). We rarely agree about things, particularly in the area of intellectual property. So when all the buzz on the web, the blogosphere, the tweetzone and even the Facebook hustings were filled with encomiums to Professor Lessig’s address to the Italian parliament, I was pre-disposed to: 1) not listen to the recording, and 2) construct arguments to what I supposed would be his theme.

At a certain point, though, it became necessary to listen simply so that I could (I thought) refute whatever sound-byte arguments would be coming my way. So, this morning, I listened.

All I can say is – listen to this recording. While I don’t agree with everything Larry says – I’m not sure anyone could – this is am important address. It sets a marker along the road to the internet age. It points the path and shows what needs to be done and – perhaps more importantly – what shouldn’t be done.

Listen, learn and understand.

…in Detroit that make stupid, bonehead decisions. Now the city’s two newspapers have decided to cut back on home delivery – by not delivering on MOST days.

The Detroit Free Press will deliver on Thursday, Friday & Sunday while the Detroit News will deliver Thursday & Friday.

They’ll still publish a print edition on the other days, just not deliver it.

They’re hoping to devote the ‘saved resources’ to the on-line editions. No word, though, on how they’ll serve lower income, and other non-connected, citizens. But it isn’t just the non-connected.

Should my daily paper (the San Jose Mercury News) do something as ridiculous they can pretty much count on not getting another penny out of me – either for a random home delivery, a newsstand copy or an on-line one. The San Francisco Chronicle or the Palo Alto Daily News would be the beneficieries of the Merc’s poor judgement.

What WERE they thinking?!?

I usually admire the stuff my friend Kim Cameron writes, and his posting on Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur, is mostly right on target. But Kim does repeat that truly awful identifier “citizen journalist.”

All journalists are citizens! I know many journalists, and every single one of them is a citizen of some country – most are US, Canadian or UK citizens, but I’ve known French, Italian, Brazilian and Australian journalists, also.

Most are also professional journalists – they make their living as journalists. Some are non-professional journalists – they make their living doing something else. People who do something for fun, or for the love of it rather than getting paid for it are called “amateurs” or, perhaps, “hobbyists.” (usually “hobbyist” is reserved for those things that no one gets paid to do and the “hobbyist” designation denotes some stature for the individual within that community, though)

I’ve never heard of “citizen golfers” or “citizen painters” or even “citizen politicians” they’re all called amateurs and so should those who practice journalism without a paycheck.

“Amateur” can be a term of derision when used by a professional. It shouldn’t be, and we should think less of the professional who uses the term this way. But torturing the fine word “citizen” to mean something entirely beyond it’s definition is not the answer.