Slashdot Mirror
Participatory Journalism
J.D. Lasica has written a three-part series on participatory journalism. He put a lot of emphasis on video netcasting, which I think has a lot of years to go before it's actually important in any sense due to the slow growth of broadband in the U.S., but overall it's a good analysis of trends in interactivity.
From the article:
But when bloggers comment on and link to news stories, is that journalism? Usually no -- but it depends. When the blogger adds personal commentary that relies on original research, or if it is done by someone considered an authority on the subject, some would consider it journalism.
I think that this is the most interesting thing that has come out of the web. In the past people relied on relatively few sources to form their opinions on politics and world affairs. With the advent of the internet comes the ability to discuss events with people all over the world instantaneously. We no longer have to rely on large organizations to provide us with news that is usually biased due to personal or corporate agendas.
Slashdot is an excellent example. Stories are posted here every day, and for those of you who RTFA you may notice, as I have, that the comments on slashdot often provide far more interesting insight. The article argues that blogging is not really journalism because there is no editor, I would argue that every reader of the blog is, in fact, an editor. If someone writes something in their blog that is obviously biased or not based on fact people will undoubtably pick up on it and reply.
Visualize the world of wine
what is considered news? 'bush says arnold would make good govenor' is that news? its not newsworthy, its not even an endorsement. so why is it on cnn every 10 minutes?
how many of you read news from blog sites?
Who is he ?
I think the press has found plenty of ways to participate. Just look at the media circus that was our last presidential election here in the US. I think it's clear that not only were they 'reporting' but were aggresively trying to participate. The constant cycles of recalls and the press' confidence in that their boy (Gore) would be 'vindicated' by the next recount, calling Florida's results for Gore with 6% of the precincts reporting (and while the polls were still open, too), shows that they don't need anything else to get involved in the reporting.
This is only one example. I could go on and on but I'm gonna get flamed enough as it is.
They should stick to straight reporting, instead of trying to 'make' the news.
Part of the "blogosphere," whatever the fuck that is. Sounds to me like something you use Liquid-Plumr to dissolve.
sulli
RTFJ.
Who is J.D. Lasica and why should we give a fuck what he says?
for the most part, that appears to mean that you sheeples read the pitch, & hopefully pull out yOUR wallets. that's your end of the 'interaction'.
other possible uses for the miracles of communication we've been given:
disempowering the unprecedented evile that is destroying the planet/population.
how does won login/become a member?
consult with/trust in yOUR creator. get more oxygen on yOUR brains. seek others of non-aggressive intentions/behaviours.
couldn't be easier. what's blocking all this interaction/cooperation? why greed/fear based misinformation canpains of course.
you NEVER hear of any corepirate deathmongers touting oxygen, even though it's the best thing for you/us. perhaps there's no countabull profit in it. another possibility is the overwhelming fear associated with knowing that a power that exceeds all known before, is in the wings/air.
we're in crisis mode. the lights are coming up. pay attention (to the weather for example). it's affordable, & tends to help prevent being misled further.
One of the problems with independent journalists is cognitive dissonance:
We as people tend to stick with familiarity, and with the news agencies, just because it isn't an independent person but rather a slew of ideals thrown together, no matter what you think things will always be slanted one way or the other.
As most newspaper and broadcast journalists can attest, there are some news subjects that are considered generally off-limits to the news side
Everything must be taken with a grain of salt. My pet peeve about news agencies, is they seemed to be reserved in what they will say, and I think too many people are left blind to major issues in life. It's sad to admit it, but there are many people worldwide who don't have the mental capability of understanding what is in front of them. Instead they turn away to fantasy, Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck, Oprah, whatever can be used as an escape.
Being that i run a pseudo news site with information that I think is interesting, I too know how to slant things for my own enjoyment or gain. I also know the dangers that most don't when it comes to posting certain information. Sure I've been threatened with suits, been visited by feds, and I'm still debating whether or not I should take down MI6's headquarter pix from my FOIA directory. I think participation is great because it gives another perspective to an issue, yet at the same time I think it is dangerous because common sense would dictate, somewhere along the line information will be misconstrued which could lead to grave danger.
EOF
MoFscker
This looks like a good post to selfishly promote my "journalism" site The Power Vacuum. It is a slash site that provides political news and conservative analysis. We normally do several stories a day, but with the August vacation that everyone in DC decides to take, we have less to talk about.
... participatory pornography?
South Korea's Ohmynews(not in english yet) has thousands of contributers whose stories are ranked and polished by seasoned editors. The internet played an important role in electing their progressive president in the last election.
There is a future for independent original news on the web. For now, though, it will remain the province of armchair pundits who sift through dozens, or hundreds, of articles and put them in a context that Google news could never do (maybe with the purchase of Pyra Labs . . . ) They may have other jobs but if they are successful enough to elicit 10,000 people to contribute $5, they are on their way towards financial independence as well.
harmonious design
Viewers interested in this news may also be interested in:
Bleh. Why did I bother? :)
--
Power to the Peaceful
Recently I wrote an article on how one might create a collaborative editorial system where the personal bias of the editors could be filtered out. Anyone interested can check it out here.
We ran an article about blogs, participatory journalism and emerging technology from a panel discussion at this year's annual Canadian Association of Journalists (inter)national conference.
The panelists agreed that blogging and other forms of particpatory journalism don't automatically qualify as journalism, but they did say that it CAN be journalism if journalistic standards and principles are applied.
One of the more interesting comments was from technology journalist David Akin, who said that experiments that enlist blogging citizens with camera phones to send their photos to news sites may be cool and fun and interesting, but it's not news by longshot, mainly because they lack the professional journalistic skills to identify what qualifies as news.
Those that can't, talk about it.
But if you can't do it, surely you're not qualified to talk about it.
Journalists suck.
Tech. journalists suck.
Luckilly, there are places outside the US where the brodband access is pretty good. My ISP offers me an asymetric bandwidth of 2.2M/384k for 29.99 euros ($33.99). France is not a bad place to live IMHO.
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http://www.indymedia.org
participatory journalism with collaborative editing in action.
I think this is the ultimate form of "interactive" journalism...
The Naked News, The program with nothing to hide.
I mean, really though, those who watch this, are they really paying attention to the latest George W. Bush sound clip?
I mean, I'm all for bewbies, but has our society really gotten to the point where the only way we can get people to be interested in current events is if the ignorant public gets to see primo mammary glandage?
Good grief.
It's cool to have all this media around, but the problem is now how do we get LESS better media? Quality is far more important than quality. Perhaps the web has made this even worse.
This is very interesting - it should be modded up. It hits the nail on the head - the /. editors might have been better-off posting this as the story (although I have never seen a /. journal article posted as a /. story so perhaps that was the author's mistake).
http://www.jdlasica.com/aboutjd.html
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=lasica
For some time, I've participated in a couple parts of a widespread participatory journalism project. Since participatory journalism can be anything from an open publishing system with editor collectives, to someone's soapbox with a comment system, it's a bit hard for anyone to call themself an expert or something. With that said, I'd like to toss in a few thoughts drawn from my own experiences.
First, I haven't read the comments, but I suspect more than a few people will cry "but what about objectivity???" Objectivity does not exist. Everyone, every reporter, every editor, approaches a story from an angle, whether a personal one derived from years of experience, or a collective one that comes from economic or political demands. It is essential that independent writers report and analyse truthful information without exaggeration, but there must be an open acknowledgement that different sources will skew descriptions based on their own opinions. One need only contrast, say, the Toronto Star, the National Post, and Socialist Worker's description of the same events to recognize this reality.
I find that the best articles, in corporate, state, and independent media report the facts, then provide analysis based on the writer's stated or perceivable mental framework. Journalism seems at its best when the writers go beyond reporting, placing events in a greater context. Obviously, context can be selective, which makes the necessity of varied sources even more important. Falsehoods and exaggerations need to be called out and corrected. However, the focus on "objectivity" has become a fetish that very few news services really pay anything more than lip service to. Far too often, objectivity is used as a cover for inserting yet another editorial viewpoint to an article or deleting a disfavoured view (or even an uncomfortable fact). The most obvious example of this that pops into my head is Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" slogan, and you can probably come up with many more.
Second, open-publishing sites will be just as influenced by concerns outside of pure reporting as the New York Times or the Islamic Republic News Agency. Editorial collectives or individual editors will post features based on an overall point of view. I doubt anyone will ever see a feature praising neoconservatives on Ontario Indymedia; likewise, I will never expect to see a headline praising anarchists on Free Republic. If there are forums or open-publishing systems, the collective/editors will likely retain some kind of control over the system. Some kind of editing capability is necessary to deal with spam, flames disguised as news, repeated postings, false info, legally questionable things (some sites will be more anal than others regarding legalities), etc. I've found that comments are best left untouched, since the debate can be useful and enlightening, such as many high-score posts here.
I've participated in two editorial collectives. One tended toward a freewheeling attitude, allowing practically anything that wasn't empty, an advertisement, a repeat, or blatantly inciteful. We almost never hid comments to articles, barring a nasty incident following the Netanya suicide bombing in 2001 and the Israeli military operation that followed it, where some knob decided to post anti-Jewish imagery as comments to every article on the newswire. The jerk, stopped, eventually, and the flood of crap that polluted the newswire helped spark a discussion about reorganizing the site and the abilities of the newswire clerks.
This leads to another point, regarding freedom of speech. Free speech does not mean every nutbar and arsewad can post whatever crap they want and cry "censorship" when it is removed. Even sites operated by anarchist collectives will have rules, since "anarch" translates as "no leaders," not "no rules". However, I've found that the most satisfying sites have an open membership policy. Anyone who is willing to put in the effort can join the edit
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
The navel-gazing segment of the blogging community has been getting headaches asking itself if blogging is journalism. Some of them seem to believe they're in the vanguard of Yet Another Revolution That Will Save The World.
But...
Journalism is a profession, a craft, a discipline. You don't become a journalist when you pick up a pen, or lay hands on a keyboard. You become a journalist by behaving like a journalist. You might write your report using a fountain pen, or you might post it on your blog. If you are a journalist and what you write is an example of journalism, then it will remain journalism regardless of the tools you use or the publication method.
As for participatory journalism...well, I expect journalists to make an effort at impartiality; to watch, not participate. A participant's account might be interesting, even informative, but it won't be journalism. Merely producing information is not jouranlism.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Do you think this means that traditional media is being diluted? Anyone and everyone has an opinion on current events. It used to be the case that you could trust the traditional media (newspapers, tv news etc) to bring you a responsible, independant portayal of current events, because they had pride in doing so, and being better at it than the other guy (ok, I might be being a little naive here).
:)
The recent conflict in Iraq has highlighted, in my view, the fact that this isn't necessarily true any more. I saw A Lot of posts from Americans pointing out that the news coverage in the US missed out a lot of stuff that other news services (such as the bbc) put on the front page. I'm a Brit, and I tend to trust Auntie, but maybe I'm not getting the full story either. These days, if you want an accurate picture, you've got to check a few different sources, and judge them on their individual merits.
the comments on slashdot often provide far more interesting insight
I'd agree with you on this one. I do, from time to time, rtfa, but I tend to pick up the wider view from the comments. The slashdot crowd seems to cover a wide variety of viewpoints, and there's always something in the +3s that picks up on a point that I hadn't thought of.
So I guess what I'm asking is this: I don't know you. I don't personally know anyone who posts on slashdot. How do I know that you know what you're talking about? How do I know that Joe Blogger isn't full of crap? How do I know that they know any more about the subject in question than I do?
If everyone has an opinion, and everyone expresses it without the traditional 'journalistic integrity', how do you tell which source is accurate?
Discuss.
Warning: May contain nuts
I have friend I know in the news business right now who is a self-incorporated,. professional, web-based journalist who does newspaper gigs every day. His name is Joe White and he works out of Nashville, Tn.
He and I had this discussion a few months ago, and he said that it is more direct, more concise to the information you are interested in, and overall better for what he does.
I find this future proliferation (IT WILL HAPPEN) to be a double edged sword. My argument goes like this:
The Good Side: Anyone can go out and present the news.
The Bad Side: Anyone can go out and present the news.
Currently we are seeing as more people get more outlets to their information, that news is niching very fast. I see it in the future that someone, somewhere will have to certify that these people are not whackos out there that are hunting the news. So here we are, staring it in the face. Already there are news sites that are full of quacks and liars that present what they think a particular group of people want to hear, and then there's everyone else besides FOX NEWS. Really, as a journalist with no declared party politics leanings, I say they and CNN need to be dragged out into the street and beaten. But please, use the bat on Fox.
Really, I see two emerging problems. "Stunt news" and credential issues. Stunt news will be a very big issue. In order to get eyes, you are going to have to get something better than the rest. News is competetive. Imagine the gimmicks that are going to happen when no one taught you ethics, nor does anyone care. Credentialed media will be an issue as well. Any idiot with an opinion that overshadows their ability to stay objective will be out in full force. Why be a political activist when you can be a political journalist?
I personally will probably like the future of journalism, but there are a lot of responsibilities with that power.
The panelists agreed that blogging and other forms of particpatory journalism don't automatically qualify as journalism, but they did say that it CAN be journalism if journalistic standards and principles are applied.
I would agree with that statement wholeheartedly.
It is not the medium, it is the standard of objectivity that makes a journalist.
As a professional journalist, my answer about the medium is, WHO CARES? It better be accurate, though.
I used to think that blogs had little impact and were not real journalism, until I read Dear Raed by Salam Pax. This, for me, was most objective reporting on the US-Iraq war.
Salam now has a column in The Guardian, which AFIAK makes him the first blogger to articulate to journalist status.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Objectivity does not exist. Everyone, every reporter, every editor, approaches a story from an angle, whether a personal one derived from years of experience, or a collective one that comes from economic or political demands. It is essential that independent writers report and analyse truthful information without exaggeration, but there must be an open acknowledgement that different sources will skew descriptions based on their own opinions. One need only contrast, say, the Toronto Star, the National Post, and Socialist Worker's description of the same events to recognize this reality.
The scientific method does not exsist. Everyone, every scientist, every kid with a chemistry set approaches the situation differently, whether a personal one derived from years of experience, or a collective one that comes from economic or political demands. It is essential that independent scientists report and analyse accurate information without exaggeration, but there must be an open acknowledgement that different measurements will skew descriptions based on their own opinions. One need only contrast, say, the metric system, the English system, and a system based on the size of the current king's foot to recognize this reality.
Please. You are the one that has lost your objectivity. When you start saying phrases like "a collective that comes from economic or political demands," no wonder you think people cannot be objective. You're lost in your own mind and not making any measurements.
The facts are the facts. They happen. You do your best to report them by finding as much and placing value on time and relevence. I should know. It's asshats like you that think that you can do my job better in five minutes than what has taken me years and thousands of hours to improve.
Journalism is a skill. It can be quantified by its innacurracies and other factors. Some people (cough) think they know, when all they have are crackpot opinions, and think that the every journalist is FOX NEWS. Projection and generalizations like what your superior mind just did makes one a shitty journalist.
It is a scientific method. Or a crime scene method, where you try to whittle it to what the public can take away from it all. Not put in a spin.
It's offensive that you generalize people. That is very, very unjournalistic.
One need only contrast, say, the metric system, the English system, and a system based on the size of the current king's foot to recognize this reality.
Nice apples-n-oranges comparison--you seem to be declaring that certain sources can be considered arbiters of objective truth and facts above all others. This is provably incorrect, as I will soon demonstrate.
You are the one that has lost your objectivity.
I never had objectivity--and neither have you, unless you're a noncorporeal force with no emotions or opinions. Objectivity is something journalists and other writers strive for, rarely (if ever) achieve, and use to attack each other while failing to acknowledge their own glass house. Sometimes, the internecine, dishonest sniping of media editors reminds me of the Scientology cult's methods regarding criticism: "Always attack, never defend".
Sometimes. Not always.
When you start saying phrases like "a collective that comes from economic or political demands," no wonder you think people cannot be objective. You're lost in your own mind and not making any measurements.
What does my use of certain phrases have to do with the possibility that people cannot achieve the complete objectivity, individually or collectively, that modern Western journalism claims to aspire to?
The facts are the facts. They happen. You do your best to report them by finding as much and placing value on time and relevence.
Thank you, Captain Obvious--did I acknowledge this in my own commentary, or did I not?
I should know. It's asshats like you that think that you can do my job better in five minutes than what has taken me years and thousands of hours to improve.
Five minutes? I've been working on this myself for several years now. Perhaps its not the decades and thousands of hours that you've taken, but I have to wonder if you're trying to hide from a basic reality of journalism because it conflicts with the values you have been told are central to your job. I may be wrong--but then, so could you.
I struggle with this every Monday and Tuesday morning on a regular basis, not to mention the times I deal with how to sift truth from piles of bullshit on an irregular basis. I've decided that I am biased, that I have opinions, that at the very least I will subconsciously allow those views to affect my output, and that even though I will try to correct exaggerations I must make clear my own views to the audience, so they can correct for their own ideological filters. The facts are sacrosanct, but the interpretation and presentation can differ, and will differ as I noted by comparing three different newspapers with consistently different portrayals of the same events, given the same published facts.
Journalism is a skill. It can be quantified by its innacurracies and other factors.
Correct. It is not, however, rocket science, or a task that should be limited to an anointed few who consider themselves and their reporting objective, failing to recognize that they cannot be completely objective by fact of participating at all in human society. A social version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle could be developed here; a person cannot observe an event and transmit that information without having some influence on the event itself, either directly (something even many independent journalists consider a no-no), or indirectly through subconscious spin and massaging of information that goes on to affect the perceptions of other people. Again, best that this reality be acknowleged and corrected for as much as possible, by the writers, editors, and audience.
Some people (cough) think they know, when all they have are crackpot opinions, and think that the every journalist is FOX NEWS.
Yes, and some people create opinions of others based on incorrect or miscontextualized quotes and clips. Did I say that every journalist is Fox News, or that
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
As you might guess, this is a somewhat contentious area within journalism
studies, although those who reject the idea are losing the battle. Before individual "participatory journalism," there was "community journalism" (where newspapers ask readers what they want to read about), but in either case the core concept is that consumers of information should be able to condition and control what they get --> interactivity.
This is 180-degrees antithetical to the old idea that there is such a thing as objective truth/news that must be presented to the audience as purely as possible and regardless of whether that audience wants to hear/read the news or likes what it hears/reads. In short form it's the debate between market-driven news vs. "watchdog" -driven news.
I'm pretty old school on this point, because the whole idea of press freedom is based on the idea that the electorate needs as much accurate information as possible from the news media, good or bad. The professionalism of the journalist and the media have been grounded in their research and commitment to separation of fact from skew -- an ideal that is often not achieved but at least is seen as a worthy goal. Traditionally, the "opinion" part of journalism has therefore been very strenuously distinguished from the reporting part of news. Commentary has been required to be very clearly labeled.
When you have "participatory journalism" -- where what gets reported, how it gets reported, and how it is interpreted is decided and mushed up altogether in random and often highly biased ways -- it really isn't journalism except in the antique definition whereby a journal is a diary -- since a blog is, precisely, a diary. The fact that it's no longer private and that the blogger may be inviting others' response doesn't make it journalism, even if some might argue that it's analogous to the editorial-plus-letters page of a newspaper.
In the case of the newspaper, the editorial is surrounded in time and space by research (theoretically) and reportage of things the readers needed to know about their world. To make it truly analogous, it would be a matter of one of the people who wrote a letter to the editor eliminating all the other pages of the paper and inviting others to write directly to him or her in public view. It may be an entirely worthy and democratic sort of a thing to do, but to call it journalism is to confer an inaccurate and inappropriate status on it... or else to change fundamentally the definition of journalism.
To put it another way: There's sitting around a Starbucks with a gang and saying a lot of people seem to be dropping dead lately and ain't that a bitch; and then there's collecting morbidity and mortality statistics from hospitals and morgues, noting how many were sick and how many were hit by cars, and THEN asking the public if they don't think that's a bitch, and what do they think should be done about it.
At the same time, that doesn't mean we need to toss balanced reporting out the door and embrace a totally subjective kind of reporting. I could give a sh*t what Tom Brokaw thinks about the latest bill passed by the House.
Instead, traditional news organizations should aspire to present fair, balanced, even-handed, comprehensive (but not "objective") news stories. And participatory journalism outfits should be free to present any sort of news it sees fit, whether balanced or subjective.
-- JD Lasica
You're a racist. And, naturally, an anonymous coward.
If you're interested in the topic of participatory journalism, you could do worse than reading some of the articles I've written on the subject:
- Personal Broadcasting Opens Yet Another Front for Journalists
- Participatory Journalism Puts the Reader in the Driver's Seat
- What is Participatory Journalism?
- Niches of trust
- Independents day
- When webloggers commit journalism
- Personal storytelling
- Citizens as budding reporters and editors
And if you haven't heard of the blogosphere, well, that's your loss.
I'm currently working on a book about the clampdown on people's digital rights by the entertainment industries, and hope to post a few chapters on /. for your input.