Steve Garfield got the last word in the opening session of the networked journalism summit, which focused on local initiatives. John Wilpers had been talking about BostonNow, the Boston-based newspaper that focuses on citizen journalism content. Wilpers said that BostonNow is managing to crack the walls of old media slowly, but they're making progress; for example, they now have a blogger and photographer credentialed to cover the Red Sox.

As the session wrapped up, Steve got the microphone and said that prior to BostonNow coming to town, "the newspapers were theirs" - incumbent media outlets called all the shots and didn't take citizen journalists seriously. With the advent of BostonNow, Steve said, "the newspaper became ours." Local bloggers now feel they have a larger stake in the media, and hundreds of them are taking advantage of it. -andy