Future 'Wired' So Transparent, It's Invisible
Chris Anderson, editor of Wired and author of The Long Tail, is no longer satisfied with mere transparency when it comes to running his magazine. It's time for radical transparency — open journalism, viewable by readers as it happens! Reader comments indistinguishable from stories! Topics arranged by popularity! Wikis everywhere! Workers control the means of production! Whores lay down with swine! Sounds like crazy talk, but Anderson floats the ideas along with supposed risks of each, countering that "in all these cases I think the upsides outweigh the downsides." But as usual, this latest Wired manifesto just doesn't go far enough.
Readers demand to know not just what goes on in the newsroom, but what's inside the very journalists themselves. Compulsory, daily staff MRIs posted to Flickr. Stool samples analyzed and reported via RSS feed after every meal. YouTube video of paychecks (amounts visible!) personally handed to each employee by Si Newhouse, with online poll choosing who may eat (and what they may eat) at the Conde Nast cafeteria when visiting the corporate parent. Live-updated Javascript widgets for determining the olfactory toxicity in any Wired News office bathroom. Monthly trepanation of Chris Anderson's brain, on live streaming video, to find out what he's thinking and to relieve pressure of scary big ideas. The print magazine becomes a black-and-white reprint of Wired reporters' last 1,000 blog posts, while the blogs become slickly produced online editorial content featuring X-ray schematics of hot dogs or whatever else readers demand at the end of each day. Everything must be visible and participatory! From now on, not being able to know something automatically makes it mission-critical information. Not wanting to know something makes you an enemy of freedom of information. And thankfully, once everything is transparent, there's nothing left to see.
What would radical transparency mean for Wired? (Part 2) [Long Tail Blog via Boing Boing]