mainstream journalism my hope is that grassroots journalism becomes a part of a thriving diverse ecosystem where we keep mass media doing what it does best and where it gives people who want to ldblquote consumerdblquote news endash but in a more interactive nature more choices the chief way i hope it changes mass media is to move the whole of media to more of a conversation and less of a lecture that would be an incredible and wonderful outcome that can take a lot of forms though i just want to note that this is a broad statement journalism can exist in many different forms from listening to readers to bringing the audience into the process as participants to helping the community find more sources of information itrquote s all wrapped into conversational medium and not lectures i like to think of myself as a zlister endash but i have written pieces such as my one on libel and sent it out to various alist bloggers and was either ignored or was sent back relatively snarky responses how is the blogosphere going to move away from an insular alist nature or become more inclusive than it is right now i guess i just disagree with the fundamental notion yes a lot of people point to each other that is true but i point at a lot of stuff that does not fall into the alist so does jeff jarvis a lot of people do point to a lot of stuff that might not be considered alist blogs the way that people do this is the constant necessity of looking beyond onerquote s comfort zonemy sense is that people are getting pretty good about it perhaps you would have a different response if you sent your libel post around today as the blogosphere has changed quite a bit in just the past few months i do know that i do look for sources outside the mainstream alist blogs if i got your post and didnrquote t know who you were endash or didnrquote t have a sense of pointing to a source with some experience as credible endash itrquote s possible that i would have been reluctant to point to it or irquote d have to read it very carefully to think if itrquote s something to point out itrquote s not a selfreinforcing alist but building credibility over time the talk of grassroots journalism is that there seems to be no voice for the silent majority that the silent majority needs a voice as more people get news and opinions from blogs will we see a centrist view emerge or more left and right divisiveness if thererquote s noothing