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July 04, 2007

Happy 4th of July

The 4th of July is not only America’s birthday; it is also the birthday of Rube Goldberg , who, as you probably remember, was a cartoonist who created “comically involved, complicated inventions, laboriously contrived to perform a simple operation”—like his pencil sharpener below.

PencilShapenerJPG.jpg

Goldberg won a Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for political cartooning when he was with the New York Sun. In 1948 reporters actually used pencils, wrote in reporters’ notepads, and then typed their stories on typewriters. Editors sent reporters out daily on assigned beats, then they then came back to the office and filed their stories, ink-stained pressmen printed the papers overnight, and trucks delivered bundles of papers to newsstands the next morning. The only input from common citizens was in the form of Letters to the Editor, a few of which were printed every day after careful selection. How quaint.

Today the practice of journalism is as complicated as a Rube Goldberg nutty invention. There is a vigorous argument going on as to what is journalism and who is a reporter. Is an independent blogger such as the Media Curmudgeon a reporter? Can a common citizen be a journalist? For example, I received the following note from a regular reader of this blog:

“As the great media watchdog you are, I wondered if you are aware of this? USA Today has this section (below) at the bottom of their main web page asking readers to provide news tips. Can't you just see the problems with that?”

USA Today.JPG

Have a news tip?
Do you have information for an investigative story? If you know details about waste, fraud, abuse or other wrongdoing, contact us today.
Go to tips.usatoday.com

My answer: No, I don’t see a problem with this. In fact, I think it’s a great idea and one that is catching on in newspaper and news websites all over the world. The movement is called citizen journalism and was brilliantly advocated in Dan Gillmor’s 2004 book, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People. In the book Gillmor cites South Korea’s OhMyNews as one of the first successful websites featuring grassroots journalism, now commonly referred to as citizen journalism. OhMyNews, like most newspaper and news websites that solicit submissions from the public, as USA Today does, hire editors who check out and edit citizen-submitted stories and then post them in order of their relative importance.

Influential and journalism-oriented bloggers such as Jay Rosen, an NYU professor of journalism, on his blog Press Think, and Jeff Jarvis, former editor of Entertainment Weekly, on his blog BuzzMachine, both have been strong advocates of citizen journalism and collaborative journalism. Rosen and Jarvis advocate for an open Web on which citizens can participate and give feedback to traditional media. I agree.

The main-stream-media (MSM) have been too insular and arrogant for too long. The MSM snoozed and genuflected while Bush lied and led us into the horrible Iraq war. CBS, a charter member of the MSM, let Dan Rather go on the air with rigged information about Bush’s National Guard service, but citizen bloggers caught the misinformation and Rather quit. The MSM didn’t care much about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s massive screw-ups and cover-ups until blogger Josh Marshall on his blog Talking Points Memo revealed the scandal and kept hammering on it until the MSM picked up on it.

Yes, news websites might have a little extra work to check on some tips that are false, and, yes, there might be a few wild goose chases, but getting input from citizens is an excellent idea and worth the trouble. The more that news organizations get input from citizens, the more citizens will feel empowered as watchdogs and whistle blowers, and the more involved they will feel in governing. The professional politicians certainly haven’t been doing a good job of governing, and the journalists haven't been doing a good job as watchdogs. It’s time we let the amateurs get involved—they could do no worse and they might wake up the watchdogs.

Posted by Charles Warner at 11:39 AM | Comments (1) | Print | Mail this entry

Media Curmudgeon [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 5, 2007 12:41 PM writes:

My skeptical friend writes:

"I feel a little better about the citizen tipster
concept now that you've expanded on it. But I'm still not quite as optimistic as you are. I do worry about people with extreme views or vendettas, conspiracy theorists, gossipmongers, the angry, the disgruntled, the afraid trying to make stories out of suspicions. Or how about partisans leaving tips about those with whom they disagree as a method of discrediting them? The press, as you've said, have not vetted government officials, politicians, military leaders, etc., as well as they should have. Can they do better with legions of citizen tipsters with various agendas? Well, let's hope so! Apparently we're
heading in that direction."

I share your concern, but people with vendettas, conspiracy theorists, and gossipmongers do leave tips and comments mostly on blogs that appeal to these types of people, I think. It has been my experience in reading responsible, thoughtful blogs such as Press Think, Buzz Machine, Daily Kos, and Talking Points Memo that comments tend to be in the same vein as the blogs.

As far as USA Today, a reliable, credible news organization, I think that the editors will vet all tips and ignore the cranks.

You are an intelligent, concerned, involved citizen, so if you become aware of corruption, send in a tip to USA Today. Try it, you'll like it.