Blogger to World: Internet Users Own the Media

As reported on the Sept. 28 ABC News Video, hosted by Charles Gibson, more than 100 million Americans watched video online last month. Said Gibson, “It is a new world, where no one source controls what we watch or listen too.” So ABC asked BuzzMachine.com blogger Jeff Jarvis to expound on the future of media.

Jarvis teaches at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism. And he gets right to the point: “I am stupefied that Big Media companies treat internet users us as the enemy.”

Jarvis cites the threats of lawsuits by music companies and media organizations against YouTube for showing music and videos. European newspapers and book publishers vow to take on Google for quoting and linking to content.

“Don’t they get it?” Jarvis asks. “They should be delighted every time one of us passes around their stuff…for that means that we are talking about it, recommending it and distributing it.”

Jarvis cites the example of Comedy Central John Stewart, who slammed Tucker Carlson on Crossfire over the topic of journalism ethics.  Javis says that 150,000 viewers on CNN watched the segment on TV.

“Since then, the rant has been viewed 5 million times across the Net by an audience much younger than CNN,” he says.

Jarvis says CNN could have put this clip online with a commercial attached; it would have reached a new audience: “People who are not those not watching TV, but watching their iPods.”

Jarvis says: “We are the ones who decide what gets watched these days. We are the new network. We can also be new competitors,” referring to the ability to record content at home, distribute, market it, and to “watch our TV on any device anywhere at anytime.”

Summing it up, Jarvis asserts: “Big media companies don’t own media anymore; we do.”

TV anchor Charles Gibson replied: “Just one nit: We don’t treat you as the enemy; if we did , we wouldn’t be here every day.”