UWOJ732

Joy, I don't think the blogging journalist has to become a hyperspecialized expert as much as she needs to have an audience. The journalist can put out the basics and draw the audience so that all the specialized fact checkers can do their thing and argue it out getting all the details right to the bazillionth degree. People like showing off what experts they are. If they have an audience to show off to, they feel that their expertness is doing something useful. While that's happening the journalist moves on, incorporating some of that knowledge into her next story (or whatever, as long as the feedback is being used). As long as the journalist makes the effort, it should work out.

And then everyone will get a pony.

The second link below is slightly off...

Try this instead: The New Amateur Journalists Weigh In.

Clickable (and corrected)!
When Bloggers Commit Journalism
The New Amateur Journalists Weigh In

Readings for next class:

The New Amateur Journalists Weigh In
Matt Welch
www.cjr.org.issues/2003/5/blog-welch.asp

When Bloggers Commit Journalism
J.D. Lasica
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/lasica/1032910520.php

Here is the URL for the excellent Dreamweaver tutorial online. Just ignore the pop-up ad. It's a pain.
The address is www.iboost.com/build/software/dw/tutorial/787.htm

Please move through sections one, two and three. It is a good review of what we did in class. We will review everything again next week and push forward to a few new things - links within a page (named anchors ) and some other features. Feel free to read ahead if you like.

If you want to learn a bit more about html, take a look at:

www.iboost.com/build/programming/html/basic/755.htm

It's a simple introduction to html tags and how it all works. Good to look over.

Hope that helps.
Have a nice weekend.
Paul

Teviah mentioned his neighbourhood and that reminded me of our earlier discussion about how Kling and others ignore the importance of local news when they claim online journalism will usurp the role of newspapers. My question is, will (or can) blogs and other independent media take over the task of covering local and community news and issues? Will people look to a big "professional" site like Canoe or Google News for their national and international stories, and then check out, say, an Old North news blog run by a random Londoner for the stuff closer to home?

Since I agree with Joy and others that online niche sites provide what print and broadcast sources generally do not or cannot, I think there's a lot of potential for non-professionals to manage the local stuff. However, I also lean toward the "what about gatekeeping and editorial control" side, so I wonder about the authenticity and accountability of such independent sites.

I know I'm lagging behind, but here is my choice for the thin media report: InstaPundit.com.

It took me a long time to write/post that last message, so a lot of what I said was already raised by Paul - oops!

Kudos to those who have argued the 'anyone can be a journalist' idea, since in fact anyone can be one (as depressing as that is, considering we're all here spending $8,000 for a degree :P)....

For my part, I think participatory journalism is a great thing - its great that there are thousands of online blogs, and media organizations that can present different perspectives and viewpoints of what is going on both around the world and at home. The speed at which we can send information and digest it is astounding.... I do believe that this is the way journalism will be in the future since as soon as other forms of media catch on, online media will come to dominate other forms of journalism due to its cost-efficiency.

The article by Lasica on participatory journalism stresses the value that individuals can add to the richness of the journalistic community by bringing their own specialized knowledge on a subject into a discussion group or blog. I'm sure everyone in this class has some amount of specialized knowledge that the rest of us don't have - and that's a great thing especially if we can pass this knowledge across to other people.
I think this for me is the true definition of a journalist - since I think that anyone who writes with firm knowledge and understanding of a particular topic is practising journalism. Whether this is under the supervision of an editor, the writing of an opinion column, or a feature on how to make Hallowe'en decorations, all are examples of 'journalism'

Tabloids have been mentioned by a few people - and I would say that it is elitist to dismiss all tabloids as non-journalism. Those tabloids that report what is actually going on then their writers should be considered journalists alongside the staff of the Globe...
However, not all tabloids do that. I can't help but think of the Weekly World News - which is NOT in my opinion journalism. It is not just that they fabricate stories (I just don't believe in Bat Boy...), but that they mix true stories in with them, so that it is difficult to tell what is real and what is not.
That really irks me.... because in telling true stories, the reader will then associate the fictional ones as being truthful as well, which is deceptive....

There is just one problem I have with participatory journalism - and its a big one - and that is authenticity.
Sure, we can have thousands of media organizations and blogs out there, with people presenting all kinds of varying opinions and viewpoints - that's fine.
But how do we as the reader tell the fact, from the fiction?
Does what we read online correspond with fact?
Lasica speaks of educated persons as forming the core of a good participatory journalism website. I don't think this is really representative. Those who are considered 'educated' represent a small fraction of the population -
(so with online participatory journalism, are we really getting a diversity of opinions, or merely journalists and academic, who would appear in print anyways, reposting on the web?) The majority of readers accept what is written in a newspaper or media website to be true mainly because
1:) they do not have the time to verify the information
2:) there is a certain amount of trust that one places in the media organizations that they are telling you the truth.

I admit that I would prefer to go to the Globe and Mail or the New York Times website than a thin media website, because I know they have a staff of editors who exist to eliminate errors and can see through potential bullshit. These filters dont' exist on the web as of yet (although hopefully they will in the near future), and that's a big problem.

Oh, and I realize that the Jayson Blair issue is an example of when editors failed continuously to find errors in their publication - and I concede that it does happen with reputable news organizations. But in rebuttal to this I ask, would Blair have been caught if he set up his own participatory journalism website, and posted his articles online?
Somehow I doubt he would have...

This question is unanswerable, because we can never know for certain. What is needed though are media organizations, both online and in print/radio/tv that we can depend on and trust.

The SacBee situation is very interesting. Perhaps, in the true free spirit of internet culture, blogs shouldn't be edited. However, this reporter's blog was attached to a newspaper and therefore should be subject to some controls. The newspaper could be held liable for him saying defamatory or racist things. I am a firm believer that everyone needs a good editor - even Margaret Atwood! Nobody has original ideas, really. We get our ideas from each other and the world around us. Why not have someone else review our writing so that it becomes a collaborative effort? After all, two minds are better than one! A writer and an editor together can always produce something that is more balanced and more intelligent.

Here are a couple of questions that might be worth thinking about.
If anyone who "publishes" anything on the net is a "journalist", then what about people who publish inaccurate or false information?
For example, say you appear in court on a serious charge (this is court week in Print!) and you are acquitted. In mainstream journalism, reporters and editors are extremely careful to accurately report the proceedings. If they make a mistake that is significant, they can be sued for libel or reported to the Press Council. Even without the threat of legal action, responsible reporters and editors try to make sure they get it right because publishing stories in a public forum about people's lives is extremely serious business that can have consequences. Again, imagine yourself in that spot and you can easily see how important it would be for you to have the facts come out as clearly and correctly as possible.
Now, let's go back to our bloggers. What if the blogger reports your court case badly, or purposely writes lies or half-truths. Is he a bad journalist? Not a journalist at all? A bad blogger? What can you do? What recourse do you have? To what higher authority might you take your complaint?
Being a reporter is more than simply being paid to write. Getting the cheque is important (it divides professionals from amateurs), but being a reporter means taking on the challenge and the responsibility of bearing witness (in many cases) and doing it as well and honestly and skillfully as you can.
I'm not sure starting up your own blog is the same kind of committment.
Perhaps the better question to ask is this: Can blogging be GOOD journalism?
Simply writing stuff down and sending it out onto the Web is, I think, just that. It's self-publishing, it's communicating, it's blogging, it might even be "writing", but is it journalism? And, more importantly, is it good journalism?
Food for thought.
Paul

Here's some more fuel for the fire this week. A dust-up at the Sacramento Bee where the editors there are having trouble with journalism and blogs!
SacBee Ombudsman Tony Marcano throws out: "This
entire debate can be boiled down to one question: Are
blogs by their nature incompatible with newspapers?"


http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/7499883p-8441946c.html

Not to harp too much on it Angie, but I think "telling" is more accurate than "showing." Showing implies some sort of objective reality of what happened that the journalist is uncovering. Telling is taking something that happened and creating an account of it. That's what journalism does. It isn't objective. It makes stories (that are ideally as faithful to your experience as you can make them).

I agree with Justin; all of those people he mentioned are journalists. And journalism as a profession is evolving, as Carly said. But what is is evolving into? Why are we studying journalism anyway?
I believe the future of professional journalism lies in education. We are learning how to write effectively, produce good content and get our voices heard (or the voices of people we write about). If we become journalists because we want to tell people about something they've never heard before, we have to work to provide a way for everyone's voice to be heard. Journalists have to be teachers.
As Danielle pointed out, the people who lack a voice in the media (thin or fat-cat) usually don't have access to technology or if they do, aren't aware of the power of the web. Our challenge, today and in the future, is to teach. We have the skills and we have to pass them on. We are becoming obsolescent as middle men. People no longer trust us to tell the truth or present an objective view. They don't have to come to us to get their story out to the public. So how do journalists continue to exist? We teach.
It's a well-known axiom that is you give someone a fish, she'll eat for the day. If you teach someone to fish, she'll eat for a lifetime. Why don't we teach people how to be journalists? Give someone writing skills, computer skills; donate our time and money to ensuring people's voices are heard; make a career of teaching everyday schmucks, around the world, how to be journalists.
Of course, this will mean that thin media will be (hopefully) better written, better researched, more diverse, more informative but no more objective or truthful than it was before. There's my little Peace Corps rant. Have at 'er.

Okay Angie, I'll take your bait. Of course they're journalists. They're all journalists. All the people who put photos on PBase, all the bloggers, all the wrestling mask wearing crackpots. A journalist is just someone who tells you where they think they are today and what they think it looks like. It doesn't require an editor. It doesn't require codes of ethics. It doesn't require governing bodies. It needs people who can see and tell everyone else what they saw. Most people suck at that, but they can still do it (yea tho it be bad). Kasia's right about the authority issue, but authority isn't journalism; it's the ego stroke and the paycheque. You don't need to be authoritative to be a journalist, just to make money at it. Or not make money at it. You know. Whatever.