Dawn of the dead journalist
If journalism is dead, then we must be witnessing the dawn of the dead.
Dead journalists at ProPublica have developed ChangeTracker to detect and highlight modifications on three government web sites.
Civic information, articles and blog posts are being mapped on EveryBlock. This is obviously an act of dead journalism.
The dead have even attacked the New York Times and created The Local, where staffers oversee content from residents of two communities. In cities like like Santa Cruz and Seattle, the dead have created similar sites without help from traditional news organizations
Over 30,000 people are following the dead journalists at @breakingnewson. The staff at Breaking Tweets is reporting on global news by aggregating messages from dead journalists around the world.
What are these dead journalists using as weapons? They’re armed with tools that can be found around any wired home. They are blogging on WordPress, taking crude pictures on Flickr and breaking every rule of grammar on Twitter. And they are banding together on publish2 and Wired Journalists.
This wave of dead journalism has no end in sight. Despite the many reports of doom and gloom, SF Weekly has found college students still signing up for journalism school.
Have you spotted more acts of dead journalism? Please share your experience in the comments below. If we help each other out, we might survive these trying times.
This post was inspired by George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Gil Scott-Heron’s B Movie.




March 5th, 2009 at 4:05 am
Great post :) Love the tag of rebirth. There is a bright future out there for journalism; we're just seeing glimpses of it now. Appreciate the Breaking Tweets shout out too, thanks!
March 6th, 2009 at 1:54 am
I am considering going to journalism school. I must be dead.
March 14th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
If journalism is dead, then what the heck is a citizen journalist?