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Friday, October 16th, 2009

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Journalism

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MSM should be careful with citizen journalism.

Back when I called a tiny newsroom in Oklahoma home, we filled our community pages with letters from rural correspondents.

Most of the time we’d get handwritten letters going on about the weather and spaghetti dinners at the fire hall. It truly was mind-numbing stuff, then one day a letter came across my desk describing a shootout between feuding in-laws on a local ranch. Nobody had been killed, but after doing some digging, I found that one person had been injured and more than 30 rounds had been fired between four people.

Journalists work hard to find stories, but sometimes you’ve got to rely on community members to steer you in the right direction. Sometimes it’s old ladies writing letters, others readers, listeners and viewers (depending on which type of media you are in) uploading videos, writing blogs, making comments and sending tweets.

Citizen journalism can be a useful tool, but it can cross into the realm of irresponsible muckraking quickly, as we’ve seen recently with so-called “citizen journalists” posing as a pimp and a prostitute and going into ACORN offices asking all kinds of ridiculous questions.

Did the people on the video cross the line? Absolutely, but you can’t tell me that those were the only ACORN employees they spoke to. Where are the videos of the ones who sent you away? Where are the videos of the people who called the police on you?

You see, people who act as “citizen journalists” do so most of the time because they’ve got an agenda to push. Rarely is the content submitted by users in any way fair or balanced, as Fox News is so fond of saying. What you get instead is millions of angry voices all shouting about whatever issue it is they think is important.

While members of the media are still trying to figure out just what to do with user-generated content, many in the industry believe it should be kept separate from stories produced by professional journalists.

Alfred Hermida, writing on the blog MediaShift, has a different idea. He believes that professional journalists are working against the public interest by acting as gatekeepers, filtering user-generated content into its own section, all while cherry-picking the best tips from the audience and doing their own stories.

Hermida believes that the best news is that which is unfiltered, coming directly from the source and says that the mainstream stems that flow out of self-interest, accusing journalists of fearing that they’ll become obsolete in the face of user-generated content and “citizen journalists.” To that end, he says that the professional media should start viewing audience members not as contributors but as collaborators.

Call me an elitist, but I don’t think that posting a pictures from her iPhone makes Sally Soccer Mom a journalist any more than singing in the shower makes me a rock star.

That’s not to say that I think there isn’t a very important place for content generated by the audience. Many media outlets have come along way in recent years toward building a community around their product on the Web. Readers debate topics (sometimes very crudely) in the comments section, they submit audio, video and pictures and sometimes even do guest blog entries or send tips using tools like Twitter.

So why shouldn’t content gathered by any old slob with a camera phone and a YouTube account be considered journalism?:

1. Media outlets have a responsibility to act as narrator and moderator to their communities.

If the recent Tea Party protests have taught us anything, it’s that sheer volume — no matter how seemingly schizophrenic and nonsensical — can drown out reason the media doesn’t offer context to the goings on.

How much traction, for example, would the birthers, deathers, truthers and the like have gotten if the media wasn’t there to investigate the issue properly and offer evidence in a reasonable fashion? Do we really want a fourth estate ruled by Orly Taitz?

The media in this country has evolved from the early days of the Republic when the press was highly partisan (although looking at Fox News and MSNBC, you might not know that.) In any case, the job of the media has become to act as a watchdog and when you just have a bunch of people with agendas slinging mud at each other, the truth gets lost in the white noise. Which brings me to my next point…

2. Professional journalists can discern what is and what isn’t really news.

It’s what the old-timers call news judgment and its one of the most important skills a journalist can possess. I used to have a lady call me every time her dog ran away (which was like every freaking week) wanting me to write a story about it. I know that it was very important to her that little fluffy got out again but was it more important than the murder trial going on?

The point is, there has to be someone out there saying which stories should get play and which shouldn’t. If you have a million different people submitting a million different stories, how are you going to wade through all that to find the stuff that’s important to you?

3. Unmoderated user-generated content is an avalanche of lawsuits waiting to happen.

I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve had people try to pass things along as facts to support their argument that turned out to be misunderstandings at best and outright lies at worst. As a journalist, it was my job to double-check up on what people are saying to make sure it’s true.

Had these videos of ACORN employees been taken to a responsible media outlet instead of Fox News, reporters would have done some leg work, contacting appropriate sources to provide some context. It would have been made clear that although what the employees did on tape did was shady, there were others who didn’t break the rules.

I’d like to know what percentage of ACORN employees approached by these conservative activists broke the rules. Was it a majority? Was it a handful? What would have been the proper procedure for dealing with people posing as a pimp and a prostitute? You see, all of these questions would have been answered by a professional journalist interested in the truth. Instead, we got a “citizen journalist” pushing an agenda colluding with a cable network which is all too happy to broadcast something that casts aspersions on the President, liberals, Democrats and poor, black people.

4. It’s not a job that can be done part-time.

During the recent electoral protests in Iran we relied heavily on reports from people on the ground with Twitter and other blogging tools. Ten years ago, we would never have even known what was going on. Citizen journalism is a vastly important tool, but it’s important that we take those reports and run them through the filter of the professional media.

What is the government of Iran saying? What are Iran experts in our government saying? These are not points of view you’re going to get from citizen journalists and they are vital to understanding the entire issue.

5. Without all the facts, any story can be spun, any reader can be manipulated.

Hermida asserts that the truth can be found in the unfiltered submissions of citizen journalists. Well anyone with half a brain knows that the truth always lies somewhere in the middle of opposing sides of an argument. It is the journalists job to find that truth by talking to multiple sources on every side of an issue.

When only one point-of-view is presented, as would inevitably happen with a user-driven media, you’d see an even worse polarization in media consumption than we do today with the rise of Fox News, MSNBC, etc.

Decision makers in the media are still trying to figure out the best way to handle increased interaction with their audience, so I’m sure this argument will continue to evolve over time, especially as technology makes it easier for users to submit information over the Web.

Does the media have a responsibility to the community it covers? Sure. Every story, however, does not demand equal coverage. Professional journalists are trained to decide which issues are more important than others. Should they rely on input from their readers about what they believe deserves coverage? Absolutely, but ultimately the decision should fall on those qualified to make that determination.

Relying too heavily on citizen journalism would only put us on a path where those who scream the loudest gets the most coverage. The media’s role is to rise above the clamor and tell the story. Let’s hope it’s continued to allow to do so.