BOB GARFIELD: This tsunami footage came courtesy not of CNN, ABC, or Fox. It's part of a vlog -- or video log -- collected by an ordinary citizen and disseminated via the internet. Blogger Jeff Jarvis says it's evidence that the revolution is no longer on our doorstep. It's in our computers, and all power to the people.

JEFF JARVIS: I think we'll find that this is the real growth of citizens' video on line -- vlogging, as it's also called. It's really going to come of age now, because you have all the elements in place to allow any witness to news to be able to capture and distribute that news to the world. One, you have cheap and good equipment. Number two, you have good tools, from MacIntoshes and other software. Number three, you have the means to distribute it on line. And number four, you can find the stuff through blogs and, and Google and so on. I saw the videos of the tsunami hours before I saw them on TV -- on line -- because bloggers pointed to them. So, witnesses become reporters the world around.

BOB GARFIELD: Tell me, from both the supply side and the demand side, why this changes everything.

JEFF JARVIS: Because it explodes television. Used to be, if you wanted to make TV, you either had to have expensive equipment, or you had to make nice with, with Ted Turner. Now, you don't have to. Now, for very little money, you can make credible, important, compelling television - as the tsunami has proved - and you can put it on line and be found. It also goes back to Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire, when he had all that fun. [TAPE PLAYS]

JON STEWART: You're doing theatre when you should be doing debate, which would be great. It's not honest-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

TUCKER CARLSON: [...?...] do do deb-- that's not true-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

JON STEWART: -- what you do is not honest-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

TUCKER CARLSON: -- there is an element, of course-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

JON STEWART: --what you do is partisan hackery. [TAPE ENDS]

JEFF JARVIS: That was watched by maybe a couple hundred thousand people on CNN. Big old CNN. And then it was over. If you missed it, it was gone. But then people copied that and put that on line through a bit torrent, which is a way to distribute video, or ifilm, and now millions of people have seen that same video. So, the distribution network, the citizens' distribution network of on line is more powerful than the big old networks, and that really changes everything.

BOB GARFIELD: So that would be the demand side -- people actually wanting to look at it. It's one thing for someone who fancies himself an undiscovered TV personality to, to put up a, a blog with video, and another thing for people actually to watch it. And certainly during natural disasters, when hours and minutes are of the essence, the public showed that it will, in fact go, not to CNN or Fox or MSNBC, but to the internet.

JEFF JARVIS: Or that Fox and CNN and MSNBC will come to the internet to find this stuff -- and, and that's important to the news business, too -- because it's a new supply of news and information and diverse viewpoints and eyewitnesses that we in the news business couldn't afford before. Now, there are great new sources of news, and we've got to look at it that way.

BOB GARFIELD: All right, so we've been sitting here for the last few years, waiting for the model that underpins network television -- just waiting for it to implode before our eyes. What does this mean for the future of -- let's start with network news operations?

JEFF JARVIS: Network news operations are going to have to operate on a smaller and smaller and smaller budget, so that's just the future of, of the business. And cable too. People are going to be able to watch whatever they want to watch, whenever they want to watch it. Except for sports, live is dead. You don't wait for the news to come to you. Now, we go to the news. Now, we'll go and find that tsunami video or that Jon Stewart segment or that weather report or that sports segment by any means we want to -- on line and eventually through our phone, eventually through high band width everywhere. That changes the essential relationship of people to media.

BOB GARFIELD: All right, let me get to the old bugaboo about the internet, and that is the question of filters. You know, it's certainly clear that the public at large does not trust the, the media filter as it is -- that professionals determine what constitutes news and what doesn't, what's fair, what's ethical and so on. But, by what process will people be able to credit one vlog, one video log news source, from another?

JEFF JARVIS: "The wisdom of the crowds," to quote James Surowiecki's book title -- really does matter. Blogs are - have proven to be - a self-correcting mechanism. People swarm on me when I make a mistake at Buzz Machine dot com --like white blood cells on germs -- and they swarm on Dan Rather when he makes a mistake. There's a self-correcting mechanism, and a quality mechanism. The quality rises. The people who get links have more authority. And that was true during the tsunami with video too. The good stuff rose.

BOB GARFIELD: So then the democratization of content that was so long promised to us and not necessarily delivered by the internet is actually beginning to materialize before our eyes.

JEFF JARVIS: It absolutely is. We really have a chance, now, for people to be witnesses to news, to report news, to give us viewpoints -- more than we ever have before. And for the citizens to, in turn, edit that and say what's good and what's credible and what's not. It truly is about using the tools of media to enable the citizens to speak.

BOB GARFIELD: All right, now let me ask you one personal question, and I apologize in advance, but a couple of years ago, you yourself experimented with video blogging, and at some expense of, of money, time and of course prestige, because--

JEFF JARVIS: And ego.

BOB GARFIELD: -- and ego -- it didn't really work. Tell me what has changed, and are delighted that, that it has finally come to pass, or are you just so mad that you were two years ahead of the curve?

JEFF JARVIS: No. I learned. I used a new tool two years ago that allowed you to put a teleprompter in your laptop and have a green screen behind you and act like you're at the White House, and it was a cool tool to play with. But the other legs of the stool weren't yet in place to distribute this. They are now, and I think that it's fun to be there a little bit early, and no, I think I'm going to go buy a MacIntosh this week and start to play with it anew and have my 12 year old teach me how to do TV.

BOB GARFIELD: Okay. Well, good luck and thanks very much, once again, for joining us.

JEFF JARVIS: Thank you.

BOB GARFIELD: Jeff Jarvis, former editor of Entertainment Weekly, blogs at Buzz Machine dot com. By the way, new CNN president Jonathan Klein agrees with Jon Stewart-Klein canceled Crossfire. [MUSIC]

BOB GARFIELD: Coming up, a storm is brewing at the Weather Channel, and why you are listening to history being made right this second -- or, maybe later. This is On the Media, from NPR.