Jeff Jarvis's Blog, page 42

Jon Stewart & SOPA (please)

Got to see The Daily Show taping tonight (more on that in a minute) and in the pre-show conversation with Jon Stewart, an audience member said he was sent by The Internet to ask about SOPA. Stewart professed (not feigned, I think) ignorance, asking whether that was net neutrality, and excusing himself, what with their "heads being up their asses" in the election and all. But he said he'd do his homework and he looked at writer Steve Bodow when he said that. Let's hope he comes out loud.

Confidential to Mr. Stewart: The problem here is that [cough] your industry, entertainment, is trying to give power the power to blacklist and turn off sites if they're so much as accused of "pirating" (their word, not ours) content. This changes the fundamental architecture of the net, giving *government* the power and means to kill sites for this and then other reasons. That threatens to destroy this, our greatest tool of publicness (book plug). So please, sir we need your force of virtue to beat down this, another evil. On behalf of The Internet, thank you.

Bring back the busy signal

Email and communication are badly broken and the solution isn't so much new technology as new norms. We need to redefine "rude."

The problem is clear: If you're like me, you get so much email that you can't possibly answer it promptly if it all, and messages that do matter get lost under mountains of rubbish. Under old norms — from the era of letters and phone calls and knocks on doors — ignoring a message would be considered rude.

Perhaps what should be considered rude today is expecting you to immediately answer a message you didn't ask for. And shouldn't it be presumptuous for people to say they want "only 20 minutes" of your time, with no knowledge of how busy you are and how those many 20 minutes add up? Don't we need new signals to let people know that we won't answer every message, that some just aren't important enough? Shouldn't the person asking for our attention feel obliged to explain how the contact is relevant to our needs and desires? And shouldn't we have a right to tell people that we can't or don't want to talk right now? Bring back the busy signal!

We are in a process of negotiating new norms for new circumstances. That is what we are also doing in the realm of privacy as we parry for a consensus about what's OK to share with and about friends and what's OK for a company to know about us. In public, we're trying to settle on proper behaviors relating to talking on a mobile phone on the street or a train. Many of us are testing the line of old rudeness when we pull out a smart phone to read it when in the company of another person (e.g., if the other person answers a phone call, it's fair game for me to check my email, right?) or when someone in person interrupts the conversation we're having on our smartphone. And most of us wish for norms that would manage the problem of trolls and assholes and their bad behavior online.

Norms. Technology is causing change and our behaviors lag that until we settle on new norms. We start by trying to enforce old rules until we figure out that they are irrelevant. Then we operate without rules.

[image error]Then we lie. In the early digital days, when we missed an email, we'd say, "My email must be broken." We'd throw AOL under the bus. But then Outlook and Google came along and email got better. So next came, "You must have been caught in my spam filter." Then spam filters got better. Now, we can shrug and say, "Oh, sorry, Gmail must not have thought you were a priority." VC Fred Wilson told his readers that if Gmail sends a missive to his "everything else" list then "I most likely won't see it." Same for me. We're just blaming technology and technology can improve, robbing us of excuses.

danah boyd takes the occasional email sabbatical, letting would-be correspondents know that she simply will not see, open, or respond to any email sent between two dates and challenging them to find her if really necessary. I needed to reach her recently and succeeded (but I'll do her the favor of keeping my path secret). Though danah's method is tempting, it's no solution, for we would miss communication we do, in fact, need.

The real problem is that we don't have control. Bob Wyman, a brilliant technologist at Google (founder of PubSub and other startups), sat me down recently and explained the original sin of email: that the sender controls when the recipient should. It took me a while to understand that. Sender-control opens the door for people you know to make demands on you without you wanting them to. It opens the door for people you don't know to bother you. And, of course, it opens the door to spam.

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Google+, on the other hand, gives the recipient control: I decide whom to circle or follow and whom I wish to read. Soon after it started, Google+ had a spam problem: anyone could send you notifications. So G+ gave you control over that, limiting notifications to people you follow. Sadly, that cuts off the serendipitous ability of anyone out there to reach you. But it was a necessary change, else G+ would have become spammed to death. The other area that can be spammed is comments and G+ is having to add more and more controls. Bottom line: Recipient must control. Bob's right.

None of that solves the social problem, though. We still need to be able to tell some people that we are too busy for them, that they don't matter to us, that we don't want to do what they are asking us to do, that we are not interested in what they have to say, that they are bothering us, that we aren't friends, that we aren't going to read what they send us, unbidden … without being considered rude. One way or another, we need to make such unpleasant communication part of our new norm. We need to learn how to say "no."

We see the beginnings of that negotiation in Twitter: Anyone can follow me (unless I block them) but no one can send me a direct message until I follow them. So people ask: If you follow me I can send you a message. Is it rude not to? We're figuring that out. If I do follow this person and he abuses the privilege, spamming my feed or sending me too many DMs, then I'll unfollow him. Is that rude?

I needed to reach Fred Wilson, whom I know, not long ago. I know Fred is a very busy man with no end of people begging for attention (and money). So I don't bug him unless I need to. But when I needed to, he didn't answer me and I figured my message was likely being relegated to "everything else" by Gmail because I'm not a regular correspondent with Fred. I pinged Fred on Twitter; he responded immediately. Bugs in the system.

Leo Laporte has confessed that for some communication, he waits until the person sending a message sends it a few times. If it's that important, goes the thinking, then they'll try again and that will make it bubble up. I'll confess to having done that, too. Rude? Perhaps. But it's one way to get others to prioritize your mail.

Leave it to Europeans to try to regulate email behavior: VW is deactivating mobile messages to employees in off hours. But that's not very satisfying: What if there is an emergency? What if you want to meet a colleague for a drink on a trip? What defines regular off hours in an international corporation?

We keep looking for solutions for recipients, coping with the increasing tide of irrelevance overtaking us. But that only makes it worse for legitimate senders and increases the risk that someone you want to get through can't. What if you need to reach someone you don't know? There needs to be an airlock someone can enter and knock, asking you to open the door and telling you why it would be worth your while. LinkedIn is rather like that, trying to use social connections to reach others through degrees of separation. Problem is: it creates one more way to send beseeching requests to people along the way: "Will you introduce me to so-and-so? Will you use your social capital with her on my behalf?" What if I don't want to? Is that rude?

I face this problem with students in schools other than my own who come asking for interviews. I feel awful saying no — especially because I work at a journalism school that sends students out to interview others. But I get so many of these requests — "I just need 20 minutes" — that if I tried to be a nice guy and responded to them all, I'd have no time for my own students and my own work. The rare student who asks a cogent, well-thought-out, well-researched, and brief question will get a response so long as I have time. Too many of these requests are wildly broad: "What is the future of journalism?" Honest to God, I get that one often. I don't bother; they seem to be thoughtless shotgun queries. If the student asks a question I've written about and I have time, I'll send instructions about how to use Google's "site:" search and find it on my blog. But most times, I have to say no and I feel like a shmuck being put in the position where I feel guilty doing so. I don't like circumstances to make me feel rude.

I have no solutions. The technology will improve. Maybe Google+ and Facebook with their recipient controls become primary means of communication with people we know and email becomes an everybody-else channel with smarter and smarter Gmail filters to bubble up the ever-rarer relevant message. But that won't solve the social problem. We need to settle on new norms that redefine what's polite and appropriate and what's not: what's rude.

Demo

This is a demo post. I will kill it momentarily. I am showing how to blog to an unnamed strategic genius.

So much for the penny press

The New York Times raised its daily price to $2.50 today. I thought back to the penny press at the turn of the last century and wondered what such a paper would cost today, inflation adjusted. Answer: a quarter.

So, in inflation-adjusted current pennies, The New York Times today costs 10 times more than a newspaper in 1890. Granted, Today's Times is better than a product of the penny press. But is it worth 10x? Should it cost 10x?

In the meantime, labor rates have risen (a Timesman today lives better than a Timesman then) but production technology has become far more automated and efficient (no more typesetters, proofreaders, compositors, engravers, stereographers, mailrooms, or "rubber rooms" filled with unneeded pressmen). And the advertising value of newspapers has increased exponentially.

On the one hand, there's less competition today. The New York Times is essentially a national newspaper monopoly (the Wall Street Journal and USA Today are different beasts). That should enable it to raise its price to such a premium. On the other hand, what's really at work, of course, is that there's much more competition today: the entire web. That would drive the paper to lower its price.

Instead, today it raises its price — by a whopping 25% over its old daily price of $2. That's because it is trying to support an outmoded economic model. The myth of legacy media — rich while it lasted — was that every reader saw every ad so the paper charged every advertiser for every reader. That's how scale paid off. Those are the economics that led to the rise of the penny press.

Online, that myth has been punctured: (a) every reader does not see every ad, and (b) advertisers pay only for the ads readers see (or in Google click on), and (c) there's abundant competition. That's what confounds legacy media folks: "If I get more audience and have more effective advertising, why am I not being paid more?" Because you're operating by media laws that are now outmoded. You're still operating under an industrial economy built on scarcity. That's what makes you think you still have pricing power.

You need to find opportunity in entirely new models, in the new scale, in abundance. Google finds value in scale by taking on risk for the advertiser (who pays only for clicks) and by increasing relevance by putting ads everywhere. Facebook finds value in relationships and data about them and it doesn't sell content but does use content as a tool to generate more data about users and their interests.

In their day — a century ago — newspapers found new ways to exploit scale. Today, net companies exploit scale in new ways. Google, Facebook, and Twitter are the penny press of today. Only they cost even less.

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BTW, thanks to the very good Times Machine, we can see that The Times started life at a penny, which rose to four cents and then back down to a penny by 1900 — because it wanted scale.

Very public health

Watching the remarkable Xeni Jardin tweet her mammogram and cancer diagnosis, then blog eloquently about it, then crowdsource opening up her own MRI data makes me ask: Why are we so secretive about sickness and health? And what do we lose because we are?

The answers to the first questions are fairly obvious. First, we keep our sicknesses secret, we say, because we fear we could lose insurance. Except insurance companies force us to reveal our medical histories anyway. And let's hope that Obamacare — may it survive the Supreme Court — succeeds in outlawing the denial of health coverage due to preexisting conditions. Next, we fear that we could lose jobs. Except in cases where a condition would affect job safety, shouldn't employers be told that they cannot discriminate on the basis of health? Whether or not society chooses to address these issues through legislation, my point is that it's possible to do so.

The other reason we keep sickness secret — the bigger reason — is stigma. We don't want people to know we're ill. But in this day and age, why should anyone be ashamed of being sick? To be clear, I am not saying that anyone should ever be forced to reveal health information. But why should our norms, stigmas, and economic considerations force us not to reveal it?

Imagine if we didn't feel compelled to hide our illnesses. Imagine if we could be open about our health. What good could come of that?

We could learn more about correlations, which could yield information about causation and even cures. Given large data sets, we could find out that people who get a disease share common behaviors or characteristics. We might gain the opportunity to discover an environmental cause to a local outbreak of, say, breast cancer, enabling a community to fix the condition and prevent more cases.

Of course, I want to emphasize the conditional: correlation *could* help. One data point is never meaningful: That I've contracted one heart condition and two cancers since being at the World Trade Center on 9/11 is meaningless — unless there are many others in the same boat, and even then, one mustn't jump to conclusions about causation. Still, more data is always better than less.

With openness about health, we could do a better job connecting people who share conditions to get information and support and each other. I am on the board of Learning Ally, formerly Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic, and at our last meeting, I was struck by the barriers that stigmas put in the way of young people getting the organization's help. I heard how getting our software on iPods has helped more kids use the service because they no longer have to carry around a special device that marks them as different — stigma. I heard a mother say that school officials warned her that her child would be labeled — stigma — if she got him appropriate services, but she said she'd eagerly embrace the label if it got her son the help he needed.

On my blog, I've been in a debate about the recommendation by a government panel that men shouldn't be given the blood test for prostate cancer anymore because, statistically, it hasn't been shown to save lives. That's because medical science can't yet distinguish between fast- and slow-growing prostate cancer. I say men should get the test. I say we should be talking openly about our prostates as women have fought to talk about breast cancer. More information and communication is always better than less.

The real question is what men choose to do when they find out — through a biopsy following the blood test — that they have cancer. Perhaps more men should choose what the doctors call watchful waiting over surgery. But, you see, the problem is that we don't have *enough* data to make a good decision. I want to know, based on the largest possible population, how long it took prostate cancer to spread after it was found. Then I could decide how long to watch and wait. But I don't have that information. So I chose to get the cancer out of me. I could make that choice only because I had the test. I had my own data. If I had the data of millions more men, I could make wiser decisions.

How could get get more data?

Step one is to encourage men to talk about their prostates — and, yes, sorry, their penises — so we disarm the stigma about it and get more men to be aware and get tested and share their experience.

Step two is to create the means to open up and share as much health information as possible so researchers, doctors, and hackers can dig into it and find correlations and patterns and questions worth pursuing, perhaps leading to answers.

When I talk about the principles of an open society in Public Parts, this is what I mean. Rather than reflexively declaring that sharing information about ourselves — our bodies as well as our thoughts and actions — is dangerous, we must stand back and ask what benefit could come from such data, now that we have better technological means to open it up, gather it, and analyze it.

Only then can we balance the benefits and risks and decide, as a society, how open we want to be, how open we should and need to be — and why. That is the kind of discussion about privacy and our changing norms I'd like to hear. Let's not just talk about what can go wrong now but also what could go right.

: LATER: Some added links:

* Larry Smarr quantifying his own health.

* On being a medical data donor.

* Give us access to our own health data, online.

Something for that new ebook reader….

If I may be so bold and greedy to suggest something to fill that new Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPod…..

* Public Parts on Kindle

* Public Parts on Nook

* Public Parts on Google ebooks

* Public Parts on Audible

* Public Parts is not yet available on *Kobo* (until I have a hissy fit).

* Public Parts on Apple iBook

* Public Parts on Sony

* * * * *

* What Would Google Do? on Kindle

* What Would Google Do? on Nook

* What Would Google Do? on Google ebooks

* What Would Google Do? on Audible

* What Would Google Do? on Kobo

* What Would Google Do? on iBook

* What Would Google Do? on Sony

A new M.A. in entrepreneurial journalism at CUNY

We got some big news at CUNY this week: We are approved to offer what we believe is the first MA in entrepreneurial journalism.

Last spring, we already taught our first class of full-time entrepreneurial journalism students, awarding certificates. But now we also have the ability to award MA degrees to students who complete the CUNY J-school program plus a fourth entrepreneurial semester. This comes under the auspices of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at CUNY.

My colleague Jeremy Caplan and I teach four courses: MBA in a box in the media context (Jeremy's qualified to teach that; I'm not); a course in disruption in media (that's what I teach); the incubator as a course (the core of the curriculum is the students' development of their own businesses and for that we the faculty and mentors meet individually with them and meet as a group to compare issues, problems, and solutions); and a technology course (this semester, we plan to work closely with General Assembly for some of that curriculum and are bringing in Nancy Wang and Jeff Mignon to work with students). In addition, the students do a project as an apprenticeship with a New York startup.

We are about to admit our 15+ students for the spring term, most of them professionals seeking the certificate (and in some cases a second career) with some students from our regular journalism program (they'll be the first to earn the MA in entrepreneurial journalism).

This comes right after the fifth annual jurying for our regular entrepreneurial course, offered in the MA in journalism, in which a dozen students created their own business plans and a jury awarded seed funding from a Tow-Knight grant.

At CUNY, we are constantly changing our curriculum, updating it as reality in media shifts, as we learn new lessons, and as we see what works and doesn't work in helping students reach their goals. That can be unsettling for both students and faculty but there's no choice about change.

This week, coincidentally, I was contacted by two searches for journalism school deans (it appears to be open season on the species as there are even more of these jobs open). I'm not going for and certainly doubt I would be offered either, but I did offer recommendations to one of them and that caused me to take a look at the curricula for various journalism programs in the nation. There are some neat new courses and methods (e.g., via @underoak, UNC's master's in technology and communication). But what struck me about journalism curricula is how little some of the courses appeared to have changed, even now. What does it mean to teach magazines these days?

Jeremy and our colleagues Peter Hauck and Jennifer McFadden sat down last week and played the game of 52-card-pickup we regularly play at CUNY, rethinking what we're teaching and how. For example, we are going to emphasize prototyping and project management more than we had. In the admissions process for this spring, we not only wanted a diverse group of students and perspectives but also of businesses, from hyperlocal content businesses to disruptive platforms. In the other arms of the Tow-Knight center, we are supporting research in new opportunities and needs in journalism to help guide students and the industry as they propose new ideas to fit new needs. And with our growing incubator, we are bringing in new services to help both students' and outside entrepreneurial ventures.

Of course, elsewhere at CUNY, change continues apace. For example, my interactive colleague Sandeep Junnarkar and others have been shepherding into the curriculum new courses on data visualization and a modular course in coding for journalism. We find ourselves constantly managing tension between journalism and tools (always fighting to make sure the former is not overcome by the latter).

Getting a new degree in entrepreneurial journalism is just one milepost in a constant process of trying to stay an inch ahead of the snowball. I'm proud and grateful to work with an administration — Deans Steve Shepard, Judy Watson, and Steve Dougherty — and with a faculty who support this endless creative tsuris.

We teach change.

FTC Fines Santa Claus Over COPPA Violations

WASHINGTON–Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz today announced a record fine against Santa Claus for violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

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"Mr. Claus has flagrantly violated children's privacy, collecting their consumer preferences for toys and also tracking their behavior so as to judge and maintain a data base of naughtiness and niceness," Leibowitz said. "Worse, he has tied this data to personally identifiable information, including any child's name, address, and age. He has solicited this information online, in some cases passing data to third parties so they may fulfill children's wishes. According to unconfirmed reports, he has gone so far as to invade children's homes in the dead of night. He has done this on a broad scale, unchallenged by government authorities for too long."

Claus was fined $2 million and ordered to end any contact with children. Prior COPPA fines include $1 million against now-virtually-unknown social site Xanga, $400,000 against UMG Recordings, and $35,000 against notorious toymaker Etch-a-Sketch.

The FTC action follows similar complaints against Claus brought by European privacy authorities. European Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding has complained about Claus holding data on children outside of EU data-protection standards in North Pole server farms. German head of consumer protection Ilse Aigner has called for an investigation of Claus' use of Google Street View in navigating his Christmas Eve visits. German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information Peter Schaar has demanded that Claus give children, naughty or nice, the right to be forgotten in his data base. And Thilo Weichert, head of the privacy protection office in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, demanded that German web sites take down any Facebook "Like" button referring to Claus.

Meanwhile, Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has attempted to bring together an international coalition of privacy officers opposed to Claus' practices. In California, Claus has been threatened with severe penalties for nonpayment of the state sales tax. And the UK has vowed that Claus will be detained and could face extradition should he set foot in any English chimneys on Christmas Eve.

Reaction to the FTC decision was mixed in Washington. Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry vowed to kill the Federal Trade Commission, relieved that he had finally recalled the final agency he had marked for death. Rival Newt Gingrich suggested that Claus apply for U.S. citizenship, "having contributed much to U.S. industry by stimulating greed at all ages; we need more Clauses and more spending to fix this Democrat-ruined economy." Ron Paul suggested that Claus set up a Liberatarian nation at the North Pole and offered to run for office there. Herman Cain, whose candidacy remains on hold after allegations of sexual improprieties, said that he "always wondered why the old coot didn't get in hot water for plopping kiddies on his lap; seemed a lot creepier than anything I ever did." President Barack Obama refused comment.

From his North Pole headquarters, Claus said through a spokesman that he endeavored only to fulfill children's dreams. "I regret that the world has come to this: treating any adult who wants to make a child happy as a dangerous stranger," he said. "The problem with our modern world is not technology but fear, suspicion, and cynicism." He vowed to continue his Christmas mission of joy. "What's the worst they can do to me?" he asked, "cookie me?"

Contact: Elfelman Public Relations

Photo via Dreadcentral

Why not a reverse meter?

As I ponder the future of The New York Times, it occurred to me that its pay meter could be exactly reversed. I'll also tell you why this wouldn't work in a minute. But in any case, this is a way to illustate how how media are valuing our readers/users/customers opposite how we should, rewarding the freeriders and taxing — and perhaps turning away — the valuable users.

So try this on for size: Imagine that you pay to get access to The Times. Everyone does. You pay for one article. Or you pay $20 as a deposit so you're not bothered every time you come. But whenever you add value to The Times, you earn a credit that delays the next bill.

* You see ads, you get credit.

* You click: more credit.

* You come back often and read many pages: credit.

* You promote The Times on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or your blog: credit. The more folks share what you've shared, the more credit you get.

* You buy merchandise via Times e-commerce: credit.

* You buy tickets to a Times event: credit.

* You hand over data that makes you more valuable to The Times and its advertisers (e.g., revealing where you're going on your next trip): credit.

* You add pithy comment to articles that other readers appreciate: credit.

* You take on tasks in crowdsourced journalistic endeavors: credit.

* You answer a reporter's question on Twitter and the reporter uses your information: credit.

* You correct an error in a story: credit.

* You give a news tip or an idea for an article The Times publishes: credit.

Maybe you never pay for The Times again because The Times has gained more value out of its relationship with you. If, on the other hand, you hardly do any of those things, then you have to pay for using The Times.

I've been thinking about this, too, in light of a few other trends I've seen with newspapers online. First, some that are trying meters are finding that very, very few readers ever hit the wall (which papers are setting at anywhere from 1 to 20 pages). That so few hit the wall is frightening. It means that most readers don't use these sites much. That's nothing to brag about. Engagement is criminally low. Second, I've seen many sites that get a surprising proportion of their traffic from out of their markets — traffic that is valueless (or even costly, in terms of bandwidth) to sites that sell only local ads. This comes from following a goal of pageviews, pageviews, pageviews — brought in with search-engine optimization — rather than valued relationships.

After hearing a few such stories, I suggested that a site with a meter might want to reward local readers by giving them more free content and charge out-of-market readers by charging them sooner.

You see, that values the local reader over the remote reader. My idea for the reverse meter values the engaged reader over the occasional reader — and even rewards greater engagement. And therein lies, I think, the key strategic skill for news businesses online: understanding that all readers are not equal; knowing who your more valuable readers are; getting more of them; and making them more valuable.

Now I'll tell you why my reverse meter won't work: When I spoke with all our journalism students at CUNY about their business ideas on Friday, I asked how many had hit the Times pay wall — many — and how many had paid — few. Abundance remains the enemy of payment. There's always someplace else to get the news. The Times can make its present meter work because (a) it's that good [the Steve Jobs exception that proves the rule], (b) it's still sponsoring — that is, giving a free ride — to its most valuable readers, though that is supposed to end soon, and (c) its engagement is still too low and thus many readers don't even confront the wall (that needs to change).

So never mind the idea of the reverse meter, but retain the lesson of it: Value should be encouraged, not taxed. Readers bring value to sites if the sites are smart enough to have the mechanisms to recognize, exploit, and reward that value, which comes in many forms: responding to (highly targeted and relevant) ads; buying merchandise; contributing information, content, and ideas; promoting the site…..

The key strategic opportunity for news sites is relationships — deeper, more valuable relationships with more (but not too many) people. Engagement.

Scaling fact-checking

Before Thanksgiving, CUNY's Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism convened a meeting of three dozen journalists, technologists, librarians, entrepreneurs, and academics to discuss ways to scale fact-checking.

The event was born out a conversation with Craig Newmark, who helped fund it. Improving trust in the press and battling disinformation are among the causes he supports. There are fact-checking enterprises already doing good work — most notably, FactCheck.org and Politifact. Craig Silverman of Regret-the-Error fame, gave us a great presentation on the history and state of the art in fact checking.

This History and Current State of Fact Checking
View more presentations from Craig Silverman

But these find efforts and organizations can do only so much. And there are so many lies, distortions, and mistakes out there. So the question Craig and I discussed is how to scale fact-checking — and awareness about the need for it.

That led to the event. Here is my colleague Jeremy Caplan's exhaustive Storify compiling tweets and more from the event. Craig's takeaway is here. And here are my notes. After hearing the room, I came to see that facts face supply and demand issues.

* Supply of facts: We need more effort to get more government and business information made public in useful forms. There are organizations like The Sunlight Foundation, represented at the event, that are trying. But I believe we — especially journalists — should be campaigning to make government — as I argue in Public Parts — transparent by default and secret by necessity. More data made public is good for many reasons but one of them is simply increasing the supply of facts.

* Supply of disinformation: Jay Rosen argued that we are seeing a disturbing trend in "verification in reverse:" taking a fact and unmaking it, until people don't believe it anymore. He cited the birthers and climate-change deniers as well as Mitt Romney's much-fact-checked and debunked campaign commercial. He said there is a growing supply of "public untruths." He argued: "Verification in reverse should be a beat… We have to start ranking public untruths by their seriousness and spread — we have to start IDing the ones that are out there and influencing public conversation, even though they're already being fact-checking… We have to start acknowledging what's going on with systematically distorting truth…"

* Demand for facts: Part of the challenge, the group said, is to increase the demand for fact-checking among journalists and the public — and maybe even politicians.

That leads to:

* Practices: The Washington Post and the Torrington Register Citizen began putting fact-check boxes on their stories. That, to me, is an incredibly simple way to open the opportunity for facts to be challenged and corrected and to make constant correction part of the process. What else can we do to bring fact-checking to the fore?

Also:

* Standards: Joaquin Alvarado, VP for digital innovation at American Public Media, threw out the challenge to begin standardizing how we store and present facts in media so we don't have to waste effort and so there is an easy means to point the public to already verified information. This won't be as simple as a spreadsheet; facts require explanation and examination. But Joaquin volunteered to get appropriate parties together to get a start on standardization.

* Tools. See Jeremy and Craig Silverman above for links to the neat tools some are creating, among them Truth Goggles, a project at the MIT Media Lab.

* Culture and education: CUNY might hold a next event on making facts fun. Sounds silly, I know, but many in the room believed that fact-checking needs to be made into a game. And Craig pointed out that some of the best fact-checking out there is done by Jon Stewart et al: truth as entertainment.

* Research: The New America Foundation is holding another event on fact-checking in December, concentrating on research about effectiveness of various methods: what works, what sticks? That is vital to make best use of the precious resources we have.

And finally, that leads to:

* Sustainability: Fact-checking is expensive. All the efforts above try to make it more efficient, by increasing the supply of facts, by getting more people involved, by creating tools, by adopting standards. This is where the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism gets involved: I believe that more transparency and more collaboration will help make for more efficient and sustainable journalism. We need to create and take advantage of existing platforms and then add journalistic value to them. We need to harness the care and energy communities already expend to share their own information. We need to help them do that.

More to come later. If I got anything wrong, correct me.