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
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
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
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.
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.
http://www.jdlasica.com/aboutjd.html
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=lasica
Before commenting on participatory journalism you should find out what it is. I know that's not necessarily in the Slashdot tradition, but it's a good practice. :-)
Participatory journalism is journalism in which consumers of information have an opportunity to participate in the process -- if they have anything to contribute.
In other words, producers and consumers can share -- or even switch -- roles.
One of the most important characteristics of the Internet is that it democratizes publishing by lowing the capital requirements. Message boards and blogs (which we used to call "personal Web sites") are within the reach of just about anyone.
I spoke about this several years ago at the NetMedia conference in London and called it "People's Journalism." That has a vaguely Berkeleyesque ring, and I have grown to prefer the contemporary term "Participatory Journalism."
My friend Dan Gillmor is writing a book on the subject.
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.
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 won't accept your definition of journalism as reporting what is happening. That's far too broad. I'm not practicing journalism if I write a letter to a friend describing what I did yesterday. Someone who blogs a conference they're attneding isn't practicing journalism, either.
It's foolish -- and not very important -- to expect journalists to have no opinions about the events they're reporting. If your standard of impartiality requires every journalist to report every possible slant and every potential voice on every story he writes, then you've raised a standard that is impossible to meet. You can't choose to participate in an activity and then also report on that activity as a journalist. You can write about it as a participant, or separate yourself from it and behave as a journalist, but you can't do both at the same time.
What you can expect journalists to do is to make an effort to keep their opinions out of a story, and to make an effort to present the facts as they see them. If you believe a given journalistic source -- a newspaper, a network, a station -- is deliberately slanting story selection and tone, then you may opt to go elsewhere.
Most people seem to equate "impartial" or "independent" journalism with reportage that confirms the opinions they already hold. They also seem to identify as journalism deliberately slanted outlets whose primary purpose is to sway opinion. These outlets are practicing propaganda, not jounalism. Examples abound in talk radio and on the web.
The primary reason to reject the notion that blog writing is journalism is that fact that blog writers lack editorial oversight, seldom obtain more than a single source to verify a story point (if they manage to obtain even a single source), and infuse their stories with entirely too much information about themselves.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
>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.
and:
>The primary reason to reject the notion that blog writing is journalism is that fact that blog writers lack editorial oversight, seldom obtain more than a single source to verify a story point (if they manage to obtain even a single source), and infuse their stories with entirely too much information about themselves.
I've been a journalist since 1977 (having worked at various metro dailies), so I probably know a little about newsrooms and journalism. My own view is that news people ought to move away from the idea that journalism is a mysterious craft that's confined only to a select priesthood -- a black art inaccessible to the masses. We forget the derivation of the word journalist: someone who keeps an account of day-to-day events.
In a newsroom, the op-ed columnists, travel writers and home decor writers all consider themselves journalists. Dan Gillmor, tech columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, is still a journalist when he posts directly to his weblog without his posting passing through an editorial filter first -- as he does every day.
Years ago I met Frank McCulloch, a legendary editor at the Sacramento Bee and Los Angeles Times who was Saigon bureau chief for Time magazine during the Vietnam War. An ink-stained member of the old guard, McCulloch believed that journalism was a simple thing. Find the right people. Ask the right questions. Write it up. "This ain't rocket science," he liked to tell people.
Exactly. Citizens are discovering how easy it can be to play reporter and publisher. To practice random acts of journalism, you don't need a big-league publication with a slick Web site behind you. All you need is a computer, an Internet connection, and an ability to perform some of the tricks of the trade: report what you observe, analyze events in a meaningful way, but most of all, just be fair and tell the truth, as you and your sources see it.
Bloggers can do that. Few bloggers fancy themselves journalists, but many acknowledge that their blogs take on some of the trappings of journalism: They take part in the editorial function of selecting newsworthy and interesting topics, they add analysis, insight and commentary, and occasionally they provide a first-person report about an event, a trend, a subject. Over time, bloggers build up a publishing track record, much as any news publication does when it starts out.
Now, is all blogging journalism? Not by a long shot. Nor is it likely that blogging will supplant traditional media or, as some have suggested, that blogging will drive news organizations out of business. When a major news event unfolds, a vast majority of readers will turn to traditional media sources for their news fix. But the story doesn't stop there. On almost any major story, the weblog community adds depth, analysis, alternative perspectives, foreign views, and occasionally first-person accounts that contravene reports in the mainstream press.
We should move beyond the increasingly stale debate of whether blogging is or isn't journalism and celebrate weblogs' place in the media ecosystem. Blogging and traditional journalism complement each other, intersect with each other, play off one another. And sometimes blogs actually do cross the line into real journalism.
JD Lasica