"News is becoming a participatory platform; the medium is the message, baby!"

Can you explain where GNN has come from and what you try to do with this channel?

GNN initially emerged from our collective desire to create a hard-hitting journalism culture for young people. Back in 2000, the most cited news sources for Gen X and Y were MTV News and Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update (this was before the Daily Show took off).

So we started producing investigative mini-docs that tapped the same production values used in music videos and then designed the site to feel like a game console that would draw young viewers and readers into the act of gathering news. After a few years, the content being produced by the international GNN community in the Forum discussions was of such a high quality, we decided to further empower them with a platform that would give them editorial control of the site. Now - through a points-based seniority system - the community determines much of what appears on our home page, publishing Drudge-like headlines and collaborating on formal articles that drive the bulk of our daily traffic. These are all totally un-trained journalists who have essentially learned to write and report through interaction with each other and our editor-in-chief, Anthony Lappé. We are currently involved in a re-design of the site that will take it beyond the core 10,000 daily unique users who are deeply entrenched in the site's DIY news culture and open it up to a broader, less tech-savvy base.

What do you see as the likely impact of citizen journalism?

I think the impact is already discernible. Just look at the influence of the net's most famous citizen journalist, Matt Drudge. He was working in the gift shop at CBS studios in LA when he first launched what was little more than a gossip column. Now he can make-or-break monthly ad rev for any of the major outlets, just by posting links on his homepage. It's become cliché to attribute the demise of traditional news organizations to the net's growth. But the irony is that the major form of citizen journalism - blogging - is totally dependent on the mainstream media. Without it, we wouldn't have any content to link to and comment on. I don't want to think about a world without professional journalists covering issues facing the global community. But the reality for the great majority of these outlets is that their forays into the web have not provided them with a way to profit from (and sustain, let alone expand) their vast news empires. Just look at The New York Times, which recently had to abandon their "TimesSelect" service which asked users to pay for "premium" content in the form of editorials by their star writers like Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd. Colossal failure. So what does this mean? Simply put, that traditional media are going to have to radically transform the way they package and deliver their news. The audience for traditional papers and networks is already 55+ and aging. It's a self-sealing tomb. The Gen X/Y/Z audience wants shorter, quirkier, more personalized and stylized reportage. And they want to participate. Big Media doesn't know how to deal with this and it's killing them. Look no further than South Korea's OhMyNews, which has literally re-defined South Korean journalism.

How do you view the traditional news industry’s approach to user content?

Right now, Big Media views user content alternately as a quaint oddity or a nuisance. Twice or three times a week, mainstream media will reference some shocking (freeway drag racing, schoolyard brawls) or silly (Chris Crocker's 'leave Britney alone!') YouTube video that essentially reinforces the idea of the commons as madhouse. But when it comes to user content directly competing with pro journalists, the stakes are higher. Let me give you an example. Last year I was at an off-the-record meeting with executives from some very established print and TV outlets. One executive editor described his paper's decision to allow reader comments on an ombudsman's blog, only to shut down the feature when the comments turned (rightly) critical of shoddy journalism. Traditional journalists are not trained to respond to their readers except through an extremely filtered channel. So they can hardly be expected to collaborate with them. And that's why user content is only peripheral at this point. The sites that make it central are winning. That doesn't mean the journalistic standard has to suffer. The editors and reporters can still control the process. But they need to learn how to make it a fluid partnership. Not a firewall.

If you were asked by a traditional news organization (whether print, or broadcast) to make them more appealing to younger viewers, what would you suggest, where would you start?

With their intent. Youth do not want a one-way experience. If mainstream media wants to continue on with the same old tired monologue, then they will fail to attract, inspire and galvanize Gen X/Y/Z. News is becoming a participatory platform; the medium is the message, baby. Established, professional reporters that climb down from their ivory towers and engage their readerships in a dynamic and collaborative news-gathering process will be the leaders of web 2.0 journalism. And they may even be able to charge for it. The rest will be working twice as hard for less money, complaining that the kids just don't care about the news. When, in reality, it's they who don't care enough about their kids to change the game so that everyone can play.