OK - there's no way for this not to sound somewhat morbid, so here it is. I've been invited to do a brief research residency at the Institute for Distributed Creativity in New York later this year, and as part of my time there I'll be giving a memorial lecture related to my research work (most likely covering issues around gatewatching and collaborative news production, blogs, and the rise of the produser). Being a memorial lecture, it needs to be in memory - in honour - of somebody, though, and that's where I'm coming up short at the moment. The usual suspects - say, oh, Marshall McLuhan and the like - are a little too obvious, while some other key scholars in the field aren't actually dead yet (I checked). And in spite of the helpful suggestions of a colleague, the authors of that silly diatribe just don't qualify.
At any rate, the iDC folk would probably prefer the lecture to be dedicated to someone less known anyway. So, dear reader, any suggestions? Do we have any unsung heroes of citizen news, of news blogging, who were killed for their efforts? Who are the first martyrs of blogging? Please post your suggestions in a comment to this entry. And be assured that despite my somewhat flippant tone here, I do take this question very seriously - a memorial is no laughing matter.
