Next Gen News

Please resist the temptation to impose government regulation on journalism in the aftermath of phone hacking. Oh, I know, it would be sweet justice for Murdoch p?re et fils to be the cause of expanding government authority. But danger lies there. Regulation requires teeth, and teeth carry power.

Third, who is the proper regulator? Clearly, it is not the industry. The Press Complaints Commission has proven to be nothing more than a diaphanous gown for the devil. But government? Is government the proper body to supervise the press, to set and oversee its standards?

This was a week of the worst of journalism and the best characterized of journalism. Reporting is wot has the bastards in. Nick Davies is the Woodward and Bernstein of age, even if it 'is a pity that he built Nixon's near-absolute power - and almost inevitable corruption - in our profession. The first and most important protection we have against the likes of him will be a business model for the Guardian to sustain future generations and Davies as he was. The second most important thing, the Guardian can do, is an example for other journalists.

Facts to check: I was with Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, spoke this weekend about his cause and favorite obsession. There are scattered http://factcheck.org/ organizations seeking to politicians 'and journalists "error and lies. Check But no organization, everything is possible. How can we scale to check facts? My thought is that we see , every news organization rather than a box next invites all his reports to verify facts: Readers Mark dubious assertions and journalists and readers pick up the challenge to explore, The Washington Post and the Hartford (Conn.) Register Citizen have it..

The small addition raises the standards and expectations for journalists 'work and, more importantly, the process of journalism, opens to the public, and asked them, as both observer and active employees.

I also think we all have to eliminate the scourge of the anonymous source. Note that I have an opening for whistleblowers and victims and the far too rare as true investigators Davies left. But if we had as an expectation that the News of the World should have told us where and how they learned what it learned about his 4000 victim, it would be less able to commit his crime of hacking, and bribery have.

The Guardian makes his trademark candor, and that is what it must mean closure instead of journalism, some legal definition of who can practice the craft of its functions, we need to open them all. Instead of allowing the government and the media to get even more into each other, we need to explode their bonds and opened the business only for all to see. Regulators, bureaucrats, politicians and the Titans of a dying industry are not the ones to do that.

In researching my next book, Public Parts, I dared to read J?rgen Habermas and his theory of the public sphere. Habermas says the public sphere first emerged as a counterweight to the power of government in the rational, critical debate of the coffee houses and salons of the 18th century. But almost as soon as this public sphere formed, Habermas laments, it was corrupted and overtaken by mass media. Now, at last, is our opportunity to reverse that flow and to recapture our public sphere.