You see, yesterday, we announced our second citizen journalism contest soliciting articles relating to the presidential primaries occuring on or before March 4th. To kick-off the contest, we have sent an email to a view journalism departments and students introducing the site and the contest. Most of the responses have been great - some professors have suggested that their students might be more interested, some have thanked us and promised to check out the site, students have been registering - all's good.
Somehow, however, we hit a softspot at the University of Missouri. They were one of the people who received our email and their response and attitude has been .. very encouraging.
The original email went out to Tom Warhover, who is an associate professor at the School of Journalism at UM and holds a number of other editorial posts and positions. He forwarded the email to his collegue, Clyde Bentley, also an associate professor, stating that:
Sounds like they’re pretty cluless if they’re claiming to be the first true cit jour site.
Mr. Bentley has responded to me, starting his email with a condesending "Ahem ... " and proceeded to point out a few citizen journalism sites who have been doing it for a while, including their own site. Excerpts of my response are below
I will take an issue with your reference to OhMyNews as a true citizen journalism site. Although they have been around for a long time, and is probably one of the most successful CJ efforts, they do exercise editorial control over their submissions, which I believe is stepping away from being true to the ideals of citizen journalism.
While I certainly commend local CJ efforts around the country, and grateful for their existence, the problem is of course the audience. Attraction of only local audience limits the participation, and most often leaves well written and informative pieces without access to nationwide audience, leaving the citizen journalism movement largely in the shadows.
But nonetheless, I do greatly appreciate your feedback and point of view, and invite you to contact me at any time if you have more thoughts, comments or ideas on Neaju in particular or citizen journalism in general.
What proceeded was apparently a circulation of my email, and possibly some discussions. Maybe a few more references to us being clueless. But this morning, I woke up to find a post, by a Ph.D student at the UM School of Journalism relating to our exchange yesterday. The student's name is Jeremy Littau, and you can read the full post here.
What struck a note with me is how it typified everything that is wrong with journalism today. I am going to dissect Jeremy's post here.
Jeremy starts off with a disclaimer
This is not meant to criticize those doing what they’re doing over at Neaju
Then he proceeds with
In addition, a quick perusal of Neaju shows there is some editorial control happening. The very notion of a “Highest Ranked News Stories” or “Top 10 Reporters” automatically elevates some stories and writers to the front page. This is editorial function (helllloooo, gatekeeping!). My guess is it’s based on user ratings and Web stats, but it is gatekeeping nonetheless whether it is done by a computer or done by the mob.
This is where I'll stop for the moment. In this one paragraph, Jeremy has expressed so much.
We at Neaju, were always of the opinion that the pressure to generate profit, leads to sensationalism that dominates American journalism, that leads to us, the readers, being incorrectly or incompletely informed. In their desire to sell as many copies of the newspapers as they can, or gather the largest viewing audience to sell the advertising, journalists tend to skew the facts, slant their opinions, just to make their own point and attract broad audience.
So here, Jeremy "quickly" perused the site and stopped on Highest Ranked News Stories feature and Top 10 reporters. The fact that the most prominent space on the site is dedicated to the Latest News Stories and Latest News Articles is not mentioned in Jeremy's post, because .. well, it doesn't serve his purpose.
Then, he claims that you, the readers, are a mob. A quick lookup on Webster's indicates that a mob is:
1: a large or disorderly crowd; especially : one bent on riotous or
destructive action2: the lower classes of a community : masses, rabble
3chiefly Australian : a flock, drove, or herd of animals
4: a criminal set : gang; especially often capitalized : mafia
5chiefly British : a group of people : crowd
So you have to have hope that Jeremy is British and refered to you simply as a crowd. Otherwise, he reflected the general opinion of the news reporting community that you are a a large or disorderly crowd, bent on riotous or destructive action, lower classes of a community, or even a herd of animals. In other words, you are all brainless, not capable of making your own decisions, not intelligent enough to discern what is right and wrong.
Final sentence is also telling. Jeremy allows that it is you, the mob, that rank the article and determine what is popular. And that, in Jeremy's mind, is editorial control and gatekeeping. Yup, helloooo? Although a Ph.D, Jeremy obviously missed the logic classes, or maybe the English classes. Becasuse whatever definition you want to use of what editorial control is, reader's determining the popularity of a particular piece of content is possibly the first such definition of editorial concept.
Earlier in his post, Jeremy states:
If anything, Vadim’s response misses the point: the rise of cit-j has led to a really cool discussion within the industry, and that is the question of what true journalism is.
Now, I don't know what point Jeremy thought I was missing, but you see, the problem is that journalism students, and journalists for that matter, forgot what true journalism is. There is the current state of journalism that is examplified by Jeremy - misreporting of facts, using slant and warped logic, hidden by clever eloquence to arrive at a point. But what true journalism is now seems forgotten and requires a debate.
But for most of us, the issue is clear - the problems with journalism of the past say 5-10 years, have forced readers to turn to blogs as their source of news. Back in the analog days, blogs were called editorials, and appeared in every newspaper. But as journalism became what it is, and bloggers discovered that their services are in demand to report news, as well as to comment on it, they became the first massive wave of Internet's citizen journalists. Because they're bloggers, and in the business of expressing thoughts and opinions, the news reporting from them is typically filled with inconsistencies and slants, rather than cold, hard fact reporting.
And that is what creates these debates - on one side is the sorry state of journalism, on the other - bloggers. How do we find our way back? Citizen journalism is the answer. So while someone may prove that Neaju does not have the true form of citizen journalism, citizen journalism is the savior of journalism. Even if nothing else, it should force professional journalists to provide us with more accurate reports, not treat us as a mob, and leave it up to us to draw our own logical conclusions.
Neaju is for true journalists who know who they are and what it is, and for citizen journalists who have a news to share. And THAT, is the point that Jeremy seems to be missing.
As for his true journalistic effort. Surely enough, the only comment it generated was from Todd who said that we are talking out of our backsides. Well, done, Jeremy. I'd say you're ready to stop studying and start reporting.
For my part, I still commend University of Missouri's School of Journalism for their citizen journalism effort and would love for nothing for than for them to succeed. Good luck guys!
3 comments:
A good discussion, but some flat-out wrong assertions that deserve corrections.
1. You accuse me of omitting details to serve my own purpose, and then leave out several key definitions of the mob. To wit, according to dictionary.com:
*any group or collection of persons or things.
*the common people; the masses; populace or multitude.
My point was that the people decide what is most important, but THAT still is a gatekeeper function that is performed by editors. I said what I meant. I was not talking down. You took it that way.
Much of your post seems to hinge on this notion that I don't trust the people. And that explains how I have been involved in MyMissourian from its launch four years ago ... how? I have given presentation after presentation the past four years about how cit-j is an opportunity to open up the presses to all. I practice what you preach both on the business and academic side.
If anything our goals are aligned, it's just I don't care for the partisanship that comes with declaring one form of cit-j "true" to the exclusion of all else.
2. "Now, I don't know what point Jeremy thought I was missing, but you see, the problem is that journalism students, and journalists for that matter, forgot what true journalism is. There is the current state of journalism that is examplified by Jeremy - misreporting of facts, using slant and warped logic, hidden by clever eloquence to arrive at a point. But what true journalism is now seems forgotten and requires a debate."
Again, you miss the point. Nobody has a lock on what defines true journalism, so my point is that the debate itself is silly. So my feeling is put your product out there and judge it by how many people contribute and read.
I'm wholly uninterested in what constitutes "true" journalism; I tend to be way more interested in how to do "better" journalism. If that is happening at Neaju or anywhere else, that is good.
But the point is that these labels (including my search for better journalism) are purely subjective. Thus I don't sell them as something more than they are. If you can find me a source that gives the once-and-for-all definition of journalism, be my guest.
3. "Final sentence is also telling. Jeremy allows that it is you, the mob, that rank the article and determine what is popular. And that, in Jeremy's mind, is editorial control and gatekeeping. Yup, helloooo? Although a Ph.D, Jeremy obviously missed the logic classes, or maybe the English classes."
Putting your inaccurate interpretation of the mob reference aside, you are incorrect to say that putting top rated stories or authors to a vote does not constitute a form of gatekeeping. Gatekeepers are not always individuals. Much research has been done that talks about gatekeeping at an organizational level (newsroom values and norms, for example). I am absolutely correct to say that the values of the mob (READ: ordinary folks) exercise a form of control that renders some news more salient for the reader than others. That IS the definition of gatekeeping.
The only kind of cit-j format that has zero gatekeeping would be a blog type of format, where newest posts are pushed down. No editor picks, no links of any sort to play up older stories as "best". If you disagree with me, I would refer you to Shoemaker's excellent "Gatekeeping" to tell me what I'm missing here.
4. "As for his true journalistic effort. Surely enough, the only comment it generated was from Todd who said that we are talking out of our backsides. Well, done, Jeremy. I'd say you're ready to stop studying and start reporting."
In the end, your post is just personal attacks dressed up as critique, and it crumbles because even the personal attacks are based on shreds of knowledge about my background. I am a former reporter and editor, 10 years in the business. I know a thing or three about the news industry, both its strengths and weaknesses. I have been doing cit-j about as long as anyone else in the U.S., I would bet.
In addition, I would have wished to find in your response some commentary on my main point about control. That is, that most sites are using editorial control only to keep out libel and other legal issues that could shut the site down and take away this voice that is open to all. It's the way we do it at MyMissourian, and it's a model that has been copied by many. We've spiked two things to my knowledge in four years; both were copyright violations.
So maybe rather than react to a pretty well thought out blog post with sarcastic remarks, maybe take it for what it is: a critique of anyone who shuts out others by trying to define "true" cit-j for us all, but also one that encourages anyone to dabble in the overall trend.
Seems like Vadim forgot one of the "rules" of "journalism" when he touted Neaju as "the first true citizen journalism site on the Internet."
Namely, never use absolutes.
Rob, I'm impressed you still possess your copy of "Journalism 101": you may want to save it as a collectors item.
Because in the REAL world of mega-media journalism, business decisions trump editorial decisions trump the unbiased truth....and in many cases, the truth itself.
The new mega-media corporation journalism is to first decide what is in the company's best financial interests, and then use the news to construct the supporting infrastructure.
This has never been more evident than in this staged Presidential Primary show. The "main-stream media", in lock-step, determined at the very outset who and how they were going to cover the primaries...not to inform the public, but in an effort to create the highest ratings and to support the candidate(s) their corporate owners felt would be ultimately best for business.
Ron Paul is the easiest example. Love him or hate him, it doesn't matter. The entire press made such an effort to marginalize him, deny him favorable coverage in favor of the blooper reel,(in fact to deny him as much coverage as absolutely possible), to go out of their way to paint him negatively; and to do it so transparently, was a travesty.
Examples: this one you can see on Neaju..the Dallas Morning News ran a front page story showing four Republican candidates and the number of electoral votes each had received to date....In VERY big red numbers. They listed Ron Paul with four. He in-fact had over 40. Typo? Poor fact checking? I don't think so.
Not when they ran a story on Iowa and New Hampshire. They listed the Republican candidates and their % of the vote.
The FACT is that Rudy Giuliani received 3% of the vote and Ron Paul received 12% of the vote.
The STORY was Rudy received 3% of the vote and Ron Paul WASN'T EVEN LISTED AS A CANDIDATE.
No one who spends any time on the internet at all can honestly dispute that the grass-roots, on-line campaign for Ron Paul was unprecedented. They raised more money in one day than any candidate in history. They purchased him a blimp! Ron Paul websites, blogs, forum comments far outpaced ANY candidate in any previous election.
For a weekend, the talking heads scratched them and kept asking him "How did you do it?" and were obviously perplexed.
Yet about a month later, I believe it was either ABC or NBC did a huge story (picked up in the main-stream press) on the AMAZING, UNPRECIDENTED GRASS-ROOTS INTERNET SUCCESS OF.........Barack Obama. Paul wasn't even mentioned.
So, perhaps in academia, never using absolutes is a proper teaching.
In the REAL world, huge mega-media business conglomerates are ABSOLUTLY using the so-called "News" resources which they own and continue to collect to further their business and financial agenda's with a complete disregard for ethics, truth, or anything else that doesn't add to their bottom line.
If Vadim believes Neaju is True Citizen Journalism and you want to spar with him as an academic exercise, everyone needs a hobby.
You can both quote various versions of the dictionary and pars each other's words as much as you like.
But in the REAL world, with very few exceptions, REAL Professional Journalism is a farce. "Knowledge is Power" and the media mega-corps are intent on controlling the flow of information and twisting it to their advantage globally.
And to forestall your anticipated simplistic reply, I don't believe a secret society of Jews or anyone else is playing out a centuries old plan to take over the world.
I've spent 30 years in Corporate America, much of it at the Executive level. Money rules. Money corrupts. As far as big business is concerned, NOTHING is off the table when it affects the bottom line. Just ask the former Enron employees who manned the deliberately fabricated, phony "trading center" which sat empty unless investors were visiting...in which case, every admin, intern, mail room clerk, and manager...any person they could find, brought the room to life as pure theatre for the investors.
Absolutes exist. It's real journalism; or to be more precise, the accurate, balanced, complete and unbiased reporting of the news that, in all areas that matter, is dead.
I like Neaju. I like my blogs too.
Each serves a purpose. And frankly, I tend to agree with Vadim concerning Neaju as he is living in the real world, is in touch with people and trends you probably don't have experience with, and has a lot more at stake.
Maybe Neaju really is TRUE Citizen Journalism. Maybe you are responding more from an emotional level than an accurate one. Maybe you feel that, in talking about Neaju, he is denigrating what you have been doing for the last four years.
Maybe CJ has evolved from your vision into something like Vadim's. Maybe you just feel the way Horse-drawn carriage, typewriter manufacturers, and computer card key punchers felt when the world changed for them.
Because the fallacy of your your "Journalism 101" comment is that there ARE absolutes. Change is one of them. And those who are not open to change or refuse to acknowledge it are destined to be left behind.
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