A couple weeks ago I spoke on a panel at Carleton College entitled “The Future of News.” Every other member of that panel sat on the “Future of News: What Role for Journalists?” panel at TC Media Alliance’s Annual Citizen Media Forum. MinnPost and DailyMole have launched with a bunch of ex-newspaper folks providing the content.

People keep asking me what I think about all this stuff. The evolution of the media. The evolution of journalism. The evolution of the delivery of the news to the people.

Honestly, I could give a shit about Media and Journalism.

To be clear, I’m not talking about media (the mode of delivery), I’m talking about Media (the deliverers). Yes, I have a role in the evolving media landscape. It might be more important than I realize. It might not be important at all. But I’m not a pundit. I have tried to be interested. This whole meta “state of the media” conversation — as it’s playing out here in the Twin Cities, today — bores me.

I’m sure this is an artifact of my mindset on blogging vs journalism. Robert McChesney made a comment at the TCMA forum that “someone has to play the melody.” I agree. There is definitely still a role for “traditional journalists.” While I think a great many people could report the news if they had the same sources and access, and while it’s a pretty good idea for people who are serious about it to go through something like TheUptake’s Citizen Journalist training, not many people have the luxury of spending all day every day doing that.

I’m certainly influenced by the mission of Metroblogging and my opinion is reinforced by my continued enjoyment of the Metroblogging format - first person blogging about living in this city. Of course I want to know what’s going on around here. And I want to share that with anyone who’s interested in reading about it. I filter.

Anyone who blogs filters to some degree. What makes it useful is that through continued publishing, one develops a (trustworthy?) reputation, one’s readers know what sort of filtering to expect, and one’s readers decide if they like that or not. If they do, they keep reading. If they don’t, they move on.

What’s important to me is making news relevant. Not reporting news.

(On a slight tangent, I’ll state this for the record: I’m not interested in being the first of all the local blogs to post something. The pressure to compete in that rat race pisses me off. I’m interested in having something, perhaps even something different to say about it. Not that I always do.)

Blogs, especially those with local and hyperlocal focus, bridge that gap between “the facts” and “what the facts mean for me” while facilitating the sharing of information and the conversations around the issues. Relevancy and crowdsourcing is what makes blogs important.

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This is my personal opinion and not intended to be reflective of all Metroblogging authors.