Role of Social Media in Journalism

11/15/10 12:43pm

Kathy Zhang

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Media experts gathered at the Columbia Journalism School this Tuesday night to discuss the evolution of media at "The Changing Media Landscape 2010" panel. The event was dedicated to Hossein "Hoder" Derakhshan, an Iranian blogger who spoke at the 2007 panel but was arrested in Iran in 2008 and is currently serving a nineteen and a half year prison sentence. Panelists included Hilda Garcia, editor of El Diario La Prensa; David Karp, founder of Tumblr; and Betty Wong, Reuters' global managing editor, among others. The panel addressed issues such as the role of social media and evolving ethics in news. CTV News interviewed the founder of Tumblr, David Karp.

"The thing that we really weren't expecting and suddenly became a big part of what Tumblr is; we started as a purely publishing platform. It was a place where you could create a blog with a lot of customizable controls, but it was all about the creation. And about 6 months in when we started to realize that it was actually this really great network of interesting content there, we started to build these consumption tools," said David Karp.

CTV asked: "If Hollywood decided to make a film about Tumblr, who would you want to play you?"

Karp responded: "Taye Digg."