Mother Jones Citizen Journalism Critique Flawed
Adam Weinstein, in the January/February 2008 Issue of Mother Jones, writes about the dangers of citizen journalism with his central warning being that “…newspapers may be taken in by crackpots and sly marketers…”
However, if you are one of the many serious thinkers who believe citizen journalism has merit, you would be left with the impression that Weinstein himself is so wedded to old-school journalism that he is either a ”crackpot” or if not that, then one of its “sly marketers.”
Here is the tip off. He writes:
If you could convince me that crowdsourcing and mojos and information centers weren’t about cost cutting or lazy journalism, I’d be all for them.
In the old-school journalism world, there would be no way for the passive audience to show how cracked his argument is, but in this new citizen journalism world there are plenty of people who can counter and expose Weinstein’s own lazy journalism and sly marketing for the past.
However, you can see for yourself. First read Weinstein and then read this counter article in the Publishing 2.0 blog by Scott Karp. Were you better off just reading Weinstein’s professionally edited piece or did you need both to really get a sense of what citizen journalism is and where its potential lies?
January 21st, 2008 at 3:28 am
Hmm. Lazy journalism… Do you mean, like, reading and citing portions of a magazine story lazily, without the intermediation of context, and missing the writer’s big point?
My big point, Prof. Witt, was *not* that citizen journalism is problematic; I believe it not only has merit, it is the future news source for most global citizens. My point was that the worth of both citizen journalism and print journalism – whatever either of those terms mean today – are threatened when a corporation like Gannett tries to co-opt an open system and haphazardly turn the thing into a machine for profit and viewership, giving the keys to the likes of Stacey Getz (whose conflict of interest wasn’t spotted by the paper, its subscribers, or its readers on the Web, but rather by a damned dirty professional journalist – me). Hybrids deprive both new- and old-school journalism of their distinct advantages and, as I tried to show, their credibility.
I commend Scott Karp on his spot-on response and his willingness to see solutions where I saw a problem. His commentary is an extension of the wonderful insights Paul Gillin left at the bottom of my piece. As a story editor, I would absolutely love to work on anti-gaming algorithms – the problem is that Gannett has proven utterly uninterested in dedicating sufficient brainpower, elbow grease or capital to that cause. As Doc Searls said in the article (and Jay Rosen, too), most of the papers who have dabbled in citizen journalism have failed because they fail to understand the systems’ very nature. To which I might add: they don’t want to understand it. Such details get in the way of writing shareholder reports.
So no, Prof. Witt, I wasn’t railing against citizen journalism – may as well complain about water running downhill. But if you read the story that way, I suppose I could apologize for your misunderstanding me. Anyway, thank heavens for this “new” citizen journalism world, in which “crackpots” like me can interact with “serious thinkers” like you. Is the air thinner up there where you are?
January 21st, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Hi Adam:
Sorry if got a bit snarky in my original post, but I have been involved in the public journalism and now citizen journalism movement for more than a decade. Over those years, I have watched the mainstream media find ways to demonstrate what’s wrong with citizen involvement in journalism; rarely do they point to its merits. For me, reading your piece was like watching one more log thrown on the fire aimed at burning citizen involvement at the stake.
In your comment above, writing about citizen journalism, you say: I believe it not only has merit, it is the future news source for most global citizens.
I didn’t hear that in your original piece, nor did I see any examples of it.
Instead I saw negative examples and heard:
You put yourself in the curmudgeon class that needs convincing, I didn’t — and Mother Jones provided another journalist with a curmudgeon attitude an amplification vehicle.
The civic or public journalism movement was started 20 years ago. For those two decades the curmudgeon class has been attacking civic or citizen journalism.
However, now time has proven their attacks have been the result of lazy journalism and lots of them frankly were crackpots with mainstream media amplification vehicles.
We don’t have to convince that class, in which you have lumped yourself, of anything. They have to convince us through thorough journalism that they have valid points to make. I don’t think your journalism convinced me.
Can citizen journalism be abused, will it be abused? Yes, but that is only half the story. Or really only one-third of the story. Another third is the positive effects it is already having on citizens and mainstream journalism and the final third is how people are working hard to ensure that citizen journalism improves journalism and does not diminish it.
Also writing about Doc Searls and Jay Rosen, you wrote, they contend, “most of the papers who have dabbled in citizen journalism have failed because they fail to understand the systems’ very nature.”
Then you write:
Of course, you do know that Gannett newspapers were among the first to join Jay Rosen’s BeatBlogging experiment, which aims to up the level of citizen involvement in journalism. Did Gannett do it just to up its profits or to better understand the movement?
Finding that out would be the kind of journalism, which I would love to see you and Mother Jones tackle.
January 21st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Heh, no worries on the snarkiness – you may have noticed from my piece that I love passion in prose.
“Did Gannett do it just to up its profits or to better understand the movement?
Finding that out would be the kind of journalism, which I would love to see you and Mother Jones tackle.”
I agree! That would be an outstanding follow-up story. Owing to my finite time resources, I can’t make any immediate guarantees (a cop out, I know), but maybe some enterprising citizen journalists could help us find out: Are big print corporations sincere in their embrace of open-source news, or are they paying it lip service as an expedient? That is the million-dollar question.
By the by, if I could do it over again, I’d revise that much-maligned statement: “Cut me a slice of curmudgeon pie, please. If you could convince me that **Gannett’s Frankenstein stitch-up versions of** crowdsourcing and mojos and information centers weren’t about cost cutting or lazy journalism, I’d be all for them.”
But I kind of hoped the rest of the graph would blunt the force of that sentiment a bit: “The blogosphere and the 24/7 news cycle are realities, and editors and reporters have a lot of ink-stained baggage to dump if they want to thrive in the new-media world. But that doesn’t mean that bean-counting publishers must recruit mercenary bloggers or convert their cub reporters into untrained, overworked, self-editing news tickers.”
No matter. We basically want the same thing: accountability. We’re just attacking it from different angles. I’m just glad the story has evoked some thoughtful responses in cyberspace!
January 21st, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Hi Adam:
You wrote: We basically want the same thing: accountability. We’re just attacking it from different angles. I’m just glad the story has evoked some thoughtful responses in cyberspace!
I agree. I love the process. Keep up the good work.