A few weeks ago social media gurus Zadi Diaz, Jeff Jarvis, Robert Paterson, Jay Rosen, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger met at NPR’s Washington headquarters to brainstorm on how the radio network should transition to a new media landscape. They urged the media to, among other things, connect audience members together to form communities around common goals and interests.

Communities of like-minded people exist around media outlets, but without a means of mingling, they lack the ability to accomplish anything constructive. An example of this is the Lou Dobbs Tonight community.

Many people who loyally watch Lou Dobbs on CNN/US share passion for his pet issues including illegal immigration. Whether they agree with him or not, they feel that reform is necessary. However, other than watching his show, buying his books and attending his controlled town hall meetings, there is little more that they can do.

If Dobbs is going to preach each night about the woes of living today, it only seems reasonable and responsible to foster a community aimed at tackling the problems he addresses. The responsblities of a journalist used to be about spreading information. Today, they have to go above and beyond.

And with the Internet and collaborative technologies like blogs and wikis, a large and geographically spread out group with similar passions can team up to accomplish their desires collectively.

Lou Dobbs Tonight viewers seem like a community on the verge of exerting great influence. Viewers could gather on a wiki and share ideas and examples of how to successfully battle illegal immigration. But without a forum it flounders at the mercy of Dobbs’ rhetoric.

While social media gurus like Zadi Diaz and Jeff Jarvis urged NPR to connect its listeners with each other, this advice is also applicable to the rest of the media. The Lou Dobbs Tonight community probably thirsts for CNN to provide it with a venue since it has a finely tuned passion. Since this has not yet occurred when the means exist to do so, it begs the question: Why wouldn’t Dobbs want to enable his devotees to truly champion his stances?