im actually gonna speak on this panel in beverly hills next tuesday.

i shouldnta accepted because i get back from oregon monday, but its being hosted by these two dudes who i like a lot who are the faces of current tv. max n jason.

i am also doing it because robert greenwald of brave new films is on the panel and i like what they are doing in regards to viral marketing thru inexpensive but pointed videos that are hosted on youtube. you dont have to agree with his politics or agenda, but you should be paying attention to his methods because they are techniques anyone could use.

the panel is called Beyond the Anchor Desk: The Rise of Citizen Journalism, its being held at the paley center which used to be the museum of radio and television.

im not super crazy about being on panels of any sort because half the time i think who the hell am i to be yammering away like some stuffed shirt, but then i look in the mirror and down at the scale and realize my shirt’s stuffed, my pants are stuffed, etc etc. but i do know that part of my responsibilities at my job are to do some of these things a few times a year, and max and jason are good people, so it wasnt allll that hard to say yes, but i did hesitate.

last week i had to put together a dvd video intro about what we’re doing blogwise at the times and i included our user generated section your scene and ICU which our editor russ stanton talked about yesterday in his interview with media bistro. so hopefully that will touch on some of the citizen journalism talking points that they might wanna panel about. who knows.

frankly i hate the term citizen journalism, because if you ask me, blogging isnt journalism, neither is taking pictures of a fire in your neighborhood. to me, journalism is an art that you hone. just because you learn a few chords on the piano doesnt mean youre a musician. likewise just because you publish some crap on a blog doesnt make you a blogger. i also believe blogging is an art. its slightly related to the art of journalism, but it’s different. in some cases very different to journalism.

but those are semantics and tonight i am up late (for me, at least) because i need to create a bio for this panel and i dont know what to say,

tony pierce is a gen-x slacker addicted to the web. he’d rather be blogging or helping people blog. he moved out to california the day after his high school graduation and never looked back. a graduate of u can study buzzed and the daily nexus, tony has been blogging since fall of 2001 and is currently the blog editor of the los angeles times, a job he used to publicly wish for in his personal blog, the busblog. dreams can really come true. hes also a cub fan who believes that this is the year.

think theyd go for that?

tonight the cubs are in town and im going with several coworkers and i cant wait.