Present were several hundred tech weens, librarians, community network developers, entrepreneurs. They were not to be found here. Nor would they have been particularly welcome. For another common refrain was the contempt in this crowd for the media. It's about threatening those in power.
Journalists live in a cocoon that has nothing to do with the real world.
Ironically, this conference was all about folks who wanted to run their OWN community newspapers. People admit they're not reading and watching. Then, as you all read, on Monday another Times-Mirror poll shows a gaping cultural divide between journalists and the public. Long before this study came out, journalists began recognizing that they were not connecting very well to their readers and viewers. Civic journalism is one attempt to address that.