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An article in the New York Times reports that a new “citizen” journalism site is about to emerge.  Wired.com is behind the deal with Jay Rosen, who is a journalism professor at NYU.  Rosen’s idea is fascinating.  I agree, the world is a story and who else better to write the world’s history other than citizens.  

 My dissertation will build upon what types of thematic rhetorical strategies do citizens use to create social knowledge.  Going back to the 17th and 18th century coffeehouses in England, you would find the citizens spreading the news.  Stories were abundant.  Right now storytelling is changing.  The global community can now participate in the storytelling process rather than just a bystander.  Good luck to Jay Rosen’s web site.

All the World’s a Story 

Journalism has always been a product of networks. A reporter receives an assignment, begins calling “sources” — people he or she knows or can find. More calls follow and, with luck and a deadline looming, the reporter will gain enough mastery of the topic to sit down at a keyboard and tell the world a story.

A new experiment wants to broaden the network to include readers and their sources. Assignment Zero (zero.newassignment.net/), a collaboration between Wired magazine and NewAssignment.Net, the experimental journalism site established by Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, intends to use not only the wisdom of the crowd, but their combined reporting efforts — an approach that has come to be called “crowdsourcing.”

Ok… I have a new favorite book that I am reading.  The book is called The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.  Setterfield does a wonderful job mixing the present with the past that twists and turns to destinations you never expected.  I highly suggest reading Setterfield’s book. It’s a quick read… not as long as The Historian and better written than the The Da Vinci Code. It’s definitely a great read for the fall.

Dan Brown says he used the book The Holy Grail and the Holy Blood as a reference.  So, does that mean that all nonfiction can not be used for writing a FICTIONAL story?  What should writer’s reference?  When I was doing research for a paper about The Da Vinci Code, I came across several books that were nonfiction that read like The Holy Grail and the Holy Blood–so shouldn’t those books be on trial too?  Because,those books, too, are cashing in on The Da Vinci Code.  Here’s an excerpt from The New York Times that I think many writer’s fear–

 Judge Asks Sharp Questions at Close of ‘Da Vinci Code’ Case

Mr. Rayner James insisted that he was not asking the court to establish a precedent. But the case is being closely watched here by copyright and media lawyers, who say that a victory by the plaintiffs could have wide repercussions for novelists, playwrights and others who use nonfiction works as background research.

“The concept that you can infringe copyright by taking what is presented as fact in a nonfiction book and weaving it into a novel could have very serious implications,” said Fiona Crawley, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property and copyright issues in the London office of the international firm Bryan Cave.

“All sorts of people write novels about historical events and go to nonfiction books for research,” Miss Crawley added. She used as an example Jack Higgins’s novel “The Eagle has Landed,” based on the historical conjecture that the Nazis considered trying to capture Prime Minister Winston Churchill from his country estate in Norfolk, England, during World War II.

“If someone had written a nonfiction book about that, are you saying that when Jack Higgins uses it as the basis to write a novel, he can’t do it without infringing the author’s copyright?” she asked.

 

Overall, I just hope the movie is not affected by this trial.  I think many people need to realize The Da Vinci Code is fictional.  Yes, it tells a story that is controversial, but it also is a good read.  To me, fiction is about letting your mind expand to ask “what if” and this book did that as well as what The Historian did.  The Historian story discusses the existence of Dracula.  Do I believe that Dracula exists… no, but it was fun wondering–”what if…”