Extra! Extra! Read it on Twitter

Nineteen Critical Mass bikers were arrested in Minneapolis last night during their monthly ride. I’m not going to talk about harassment and/or justice in this post except to say that it looks like the Minneapolis police used excessive force during the arrests. There are videos and photos for viewing. (Follow the links.)

I’m going to talk about how I found out within a few hours and without the help of any official media source. A link drifted in on Twitter, a twit from Mr. Ed Kohler: “What the heck happened at Critical Mass in Minneapolis tonight?” with a link to a report at City Pages Blotter. Then another twit, WCCO’s Jason DeRusha stating CCO would have a report with video soon. This was around 10 p.m.

I ran a Google news search and found the Indymedia report.

Nothing at StarTribune. (They have a story now.)

There’s something happening here and we know what it is.

It’s about the shifting media space and the shouts I’m hearing out here on the ‘Net. It’s about casual news sources beating out traditional sources.

Time Magazine opens its archives

Time Magazine has opened its archives back to 1923. Here’s the May 7, 1945 issue with Hitler on the cover.

via Doc Searls.

Jeremy Iggers update

Jeremy Iggers recently left the Star Tribune and has been named executive director of Twin Cities Media Alliance, the parent organization of TC Daily Planet. And he’s blogging!

The Newspaper Struggle

Over at David Strom’s Web Informant, David Hakala writes an intriguing piece about newspapers, online and off.

Newspapers will never get IT right

That title is his conclusion. Newspapers don’t get IT—as in “Information Technology”— right and, they don’t get it, meaning the news delivery business right. They are shackled to old concepts like selling the news as it ages and advertising. Right: I want to pay money for old news in their archives. If anything I might pay for current news if they were the only outlet.

And no matter what Bill Gates says, advertising as we currently know it is going to die. I think it will be a pretty messy death and we will all have to suffer through some really irritating histrionics but throwing ads out mindlessly, even to something you’ve identified as your target group, won’t be sustained under the new Internet regime where I will manage my vendors the way I like.

David does a wonderful job of deconstructing the online newspaper presence and make sure to read the comments.

Bonus: Project VRM site.