That’s right folks.  The very same revolution that is reported ad nauseum by the press, about the press, is also taking place in an equally ancient medium: maps.

Tell me this blurb from the New York Times story about “geo-volunteerism” doesn’t sound like it fell right off the back of the paper wagon…

But Tele Atlas says its customers, who might be in delivery trucks or emergency vehicles, can’t rely fully on community-created maps, any more than historians can rely on Wikipedia.

“Most of our customers expect a level of due diligence and quality that is way more than what a community is going to put together,” said Patrick McDevitt, vice president of global engineering at Tele Atlas.

Defenders of the amateur approach point out that professionally created maps often have errors and can be slow to add road closures and other updates. Google has moderators who try to verify the accuracy of users’ changes, unless they are very minor, while OpenStreetMap relies on its members to police changes.

A statement about the “level of due diligence and quality” could just as easily come from the mouth of a hardened traditional journalist, while the retort could have rolled off the tongue of a sassy, Buddy Holly-esque blogger.

Every once in a while it’s helpful to remember that this dramatic shift is much bigger than just “news”.  It’s about the future of all printed information.  No single industry (or company) should deny that kind of flood.  Sink or swim.

But enough pontificating.  The best part about the article?  Decaturite John Kittle Jr. gets a shout-out!

All AJC print subscribers received this email yesterday.

Dear _________,

The floods that washed across most of Georgia have personally impacted everyone. Whether you’ve experienced power outages, been stuck in the traffic gridlock or have property damage, your life has been affected.

This epic story is a reminder of the vital role that newspapers play in the communities we serve. Our journalists traveled far and wide in the middle of the floods, photographers took to the skies in a helicopter to document the damage, and newspaper carriers battled traffic, detours and downed trees to deliver the paper to you. Like no other news source could, the AJC delivered ongoing, up-to-the-minute information on ajc.com, and in-depth coverage in the AJC.

Each and every day, employees are committed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution being a forum for the local community. The AJC doesn’t take this responsibility lightly. We work very hard at fulfilling our mission – providing news and information that’s meaningful to our readers every day.

With the largest news-gathering team in the state, the AJC will continue to bring you the most extensive coverage on the efforts to recover and rebuild. You can trust that we will see the story through and provide investigative journalism that only a newspaper can provide. Our commitment to serving you remains strong. Thank you for being our subscriber.

Sincerely,

Michael Joseph

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Another week, another mashup of journalists publicly stumbling their way through the tough questions facing their industry, emerging on the other side of a two-hour session essentially where they started; with resigned, puzzled looks on their faces.   And then of course, a bunch of other journalists inevitably run back to their laptops to write about it.   We must forgive them of course, because although the formal industry is in dire straights, never has the field of journalism been such a rich battleground of ideas, open questions and opportunities to ruminate over.

This week, another chapter in this Mitchner-length saga unfolded; this time out west, amongst the cool shadows of the Rocky Mountains.  A panel of “old guard” journalists met out in Apsen, Colorado at the Ideas Festival to take another go at the new age  question of “How do we save journalism in it’s traditional form (a.k.a. ourselves)?”

Politico summed up the event nicely yesterday, capped with a snarky headline that could only have been written by an online-only news outlet, “Save Journalism?  Beats us panel says“.  But reading deeper into the article, that’s not actually what was said.  In fact, I’d argue that this panel of traditional journalists came the closest to a “mea culpa” moment that I’ve encountered.

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In an interview with WABE this morning, AJC editor Julia Wallace hints at more changes to the redesign in future months.  Here’s what stood out to me…

Over time, Wallace says the AJC will become more transparent. Alongside articles, readers will see pros and cons to issues, what sources reporters used and how you, the reader, can access the information.

It seems that someone out there is listening.  If not to me, than to someone else who’s saying something very similar.   I’ll be very interested to see how this translates onto paper and whether it will also be done online.

Regardless, this is a big step in the right direction.  Keep it up AJC.  More people, myself included, are warming up to the redesign on a daily basis.

Sorry to be the gnat in your face AJC, but…

Scott sends in a pic of one of your blurbs this morning that REALLY gets the Waffle House museum story backwards…

As we all know, the original Waffle House along E. College Ave was turned into a museum back in September, prior to its nomination for historic status, which was approved on April 28th (thanks to Jay for this tidbit).

Props to my dad for forwarding me a link to a Colin McEnroe column that led me to this Nieman Journalism Lab article inspired by John Hodgeman’s attempts to sell a book by B-movie actor Bruce Campbell (did you follow all that?)…

Newspapers are by definition devoted to the mass audience. In their current form, they can’t exploit the Bruce Campbell [passionate audience] niche – they’re ABC sitcom [mass audience] all the way. They’re okay at building a big audience, but horrible at earning devotion.

Ever read a blog that has a terrific community around it, where the comments are always smart, the readers are obviously engaged, and it looks like the best the Internet can be? Compare that [to] the mix of clowns and boors you see haunting the comments sections of most newspaper websites.

Could the online “devoted audience” someday become the Holy Grail of internet sustainability?  If advertisers ever wake up to the posssibilities, I’d say “yes!”

Click the pic to link over to the video!

Fresh Loaf has discovered a video that shows off the AJC redesign that will hit newsstands May 2nd.  (I’d post it here, but Wordpress.com doesn’t support Brightcove videos.)

I’m still undecided on whether I like it.  It definitely looks more fun!  But is that a good thing?

Perhaps if the AJC didn’t pretend like it was the only game in town, everyone else wouldn’t jump up quite so quickly when they actually gave a blogger credit.

Oh and P.S., how do you know when your newspaper is turning into a glorfied blog?

When they post things like “Clermont Lounge For Sale!” -  implying the strip club could close – and then they retract with an article about how it won’t close as a result of a sale.

Welcome to knee-jerk gossip land.  Make sure to try the hat-tip.

Former Creative Loafing editor – and current blogger – Ken Edelstein is quoted in this morning’s NY Times, in a piece about the future voice of the AJC’s editoral staff. Ken reacts to Cynthia Tucker’s move to DC…

“It’s definitely a move to the right, and it’s a real change for a paper that was the most important progressive voice in the South for a long time.”

In same same article, the AJC editor Julia Wallace says this…

“We have moved to a different kind of editorial that’s much more about community issues and less about, ‘let me opine on national issues,’ ” she said.

Elsewhere on the interweb, GriftDrift is still struggling with another recent quote by Wallace and has submitted this question to the AJC…

Given the reaction of the online community as well as the rise of such local websites as inDecatur and DecaturMetro while the AJC continued to close local bureaus, do you regret stating the following in 2007?

“Online, we will show that we know Atlanta best, providing superlative news and information and becoming the preferred medium for connecting local communities”

A couple quick thoughts:

1. Communities might be willing to settle on having large, all-knowing (better-than-you) corporations become their “preferred” connection to their neighbors IF there’s no other option. But guess what? Its always going to be better when communities do it themselves.

2. I don’t read much editorial in the AJC these days – can’t say I ever did – so I can’t judge any nefarious move to the right. But I do know the paper has a long way to go if they want to be a “community” paper/site. They gotta go well beyond the well-researched article.

As a case in point: the comments section. I’m sorry but nothing says “community” less than a bunch of semi-racist, off-topic snipes attached to each article. Community online is built through respectful discussion. But BREAKING NEWS, it works the other way too. Real world communities can be destroyed by disrespectful online discussion. So step one: stop treating your comments as a throw away and take responsibility for your site.