Referring to either layer number 6 or 7 from Steve Outing's article, the 11 layers of citizen journalism, comment on the role that citizen journalism can play in impacting the production and dissemination of news. Make reference to other commenters on this article, including Gillmor's note for the inclusion of more layers, Grubisich's commentary on the poor content level of citizen journalism publications, and Heaton's rebuttal on the insulting comparison between mainstream journalism and citizen journalism.
A good example of stand-alone citizen journalism would be
Perfect Duluth Day . I wrote about this community site in an
article when I completed an internship in Duluth, MN over the summer. I found the creators of this blog were engagers of the art/music/underground culture of the city. The postings were a great way to find out about counterculture events and topics in the city, which mostly had an older, more mainstream-thinking population. This site was a good niche outlet for the creators, some of whom were teachers at an alternative charter school, or DJ's at a local club, or other artists and writers.
This blog also posted commentary about mainstream media, which I found helpful and insightful as an intern at the local newspaper wanting to learn more about the community I was covering. The blog would post interesting weekend events or local hang-out sites or lore. A few of my story ideas for the summer would stem from the site, enough that I was curious enough to interview the creators and write about the site's anniversary; a sort of reverse media-commentary on the blog.
However, the site did have some of the elements Grubisich mentioned, such as not giving enough opportunity for citizen content or leaving too much trite and uninteresting information. Many of the posts are more about inside humor among the contributors, and an outsider may have to sift through information before stumbling upon something more pertinent.
But I do think that sites like perfectduluthday.com are an interesting and refreshing outlet for certain niche groups, and events that mainstream media miss are often found.
Using a couple of examples from CyberJounalist.net listing of J-Blogs affiliated with newspapers (as opposed to independent blogs by journalists unaffiliated with the MSM directly), or listings from the class blog for this week's lecture, please apply your week's readings to an examination of the usage of blogs in the newsroom. Since many newspapers are making the move to incorporate blogs, what practical significance can you see in the way they are implementing it? Any criticisms of the way they are using it?
Gilmor believes newspapers should open up more and trust audiences in creating in-house blogs. While he mentioned news forums on the New York Times' site may have some insightful perspectives, blogs should provide newspapers the opportunity to receive feedback from this audience. Gillmor described how he would post ideas before writing a column, in order to gauge the readers' reaction. He also said the blog could be used more like a reporter's notebook, with a journalist commenting on items pertinent to one's beat, so the audience could see what kind of things the journalist is keeping track of.
In looking at some of the blogs in the J-Blogs listing on Cyberjournalist.net, Eric Alterman's blog on MSNBC.com was very interesting because he posted many of his commentators' info. However, these seemed to be more like "letters to the editor" and still too one-sided. Those with comments would post their name and hometown, and have questions and comments about Alterman's posting. I'm sure if Alterman took some of these comments into consideration of posing the next of his story ideas, perhaps this would fall into more of what Gillmor was suggesting.
Lasso, the news roundup blog by the Austin American-Statesman, struck me as particularly interesting because for the longest time, the Statesman would not identify the blog as a blog. It serves as a news aggregator, and though I've only seen a few of the comments, it seemed a little ahead of its time before all of the opinions and commenting took over on the blogs.
Diversity in newsrooms: Part II
While the term “diversity” may usually bring to one’s mind the historically underrepresented groups of people of color, diversity in newsroom also includes generational differences. With the baby boomer demographic slowly reaching retirement age and the new tech-boomers coming in, the importance of young journalists in the newsroom remains a vital key in keeping up with consumers.
In an online Poynter
article Denver Post journalist Chris Frates described how he and a few other colleagues created the
Association for Young Journalists. Frates described the importance of networking together as young journalists, but also how important it was for editors to recognize youth as a generational bridge. At the moment the Web site stands for little more than a rudimentary discussion board, but the group best serves as an e-mail listserv.
Now, I’m an aspiring young journalist myself. Obviously I’m going to be the cheerleader for the younger generation. But I’ve never been much of a trend-setter. I’ve never been too fashionably ahead of the game, in terms of clothing, music or lifestyle. But I realize its tremendous importance in determining modern social climate.
Newspapers, in order to function as a reliable source of information, must stay on top of that trend. They have to get out of the old-fogey attitude of separating news as news, and everything else is in a different category. Well, sports is news. Entertainment is news. And as I’m learning in this class that if these two areas of interest remain the peak-climbers for generating readers, newspapers better pay attention.
A friend of mine, Tom Horgen, has just been hired as the nightlife reporter at the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune. He told me that the reason he decided to cover the entertainment beat was because he knew it was the most effective way to reach a younger audience. He told me if movies and music reflect current social issues, his own commentary would then exist to inform that audience the best. Horgen just graduated last spring, but it’s newspapers like the Star-Tribune that recognize these advantages in hiring.
Another professional journalist I know, Marian Liu of the San Jose
Mercury News, has been a champion of the youthful demographic since she’s been an intern. Now, she runs an entertainment review
blog which also hosts podcasts. Her site includes internal links, photos and listings of events. She has also served as an Association of Young Journalists’ board member.
A
list of 10 leading young journalists on the Boston Phoenix’s Web site shows how professionals have taken innovations in the industry. Most of them have positions at the online sites of newspapers, or in management, or have correspondent titles. The industry has long generated a large influx of cub reporters who sharpen their teeth on crime stories, but it more stories like this list of 10 are emerging. It seems as though enterprising individuals who utilize full potential of energized youth have begun to find a niche in today's newsrooms.
Use the resources for either Bye's Echo Chamber Project or Olsen's Blogumentary Project to address the role that vlogging or open source documentary production/journalism can play in MSM production of news stories. It has been said in the past that citizen journalism's role is limited to recording day-to-day events, but these examples highlight a deeper, more fundamental and architected role for citizen journalists doing vlogging. Do you think that the author(s) approach to movie/film production can aid television in new strategies for investigative journalism? Are there any helpful, new aspects and novel approaches to their form of video production that can benefit MSM? You can decide to address any of the following aspects in your comment:
I believe citizen journalism can advance news stories in terms of creativity. Again and again, mainstream media has been dogged by pack journalism, where one competitor tries to up another in means of getting the story out faster, and not necessarily better. In this way, stories coming out mainstream media suffer from accuracy, such as the examples of WMDs leading up to the invasion of Iraq and how MSM completely believed that story. Stories are also covered in the same way throughout the media networks and top newspapers. While it is part of an editor's morning agenda to scope the New York Times and Washington Post to keep abreast of the daily news, it is not a means as running those same stories in local papers. Ideally, national issues should paired with local issues in those same stories: is something like that going on here?
Blogs and vlogs can help strengthen this hyperlocal perspective. Differing viewpoints and angles on story can blossom with each new creator. The more voices are heard, the better a single story can be re-hashed and re-created in order to inform the public.
Collaborative work can greatly advance these perspectives. With a model like the Echo Chamber Project, volunteerism can engineer social capital, or the value gained from contributing toward the greater good, and help support the quality of one's work. However, time, money and effort must all be generated from scratch. Bye's project seems to undertake a great amount of inefficiency by distributing a center of control over the work, but his faith in the collaborative creative efforts of people as a grassroots network is astounding and refreshing.
These projects can all generate new stories and fresh angles to MSM articles. However, I still believe the blogosphere and vlogosphere are separte entities of the mainstream media; contributors at best.
Use the resources below to locate a podcast of interest to you. (CAVEAT: Be sure to find a podcast that is related to either your topics for your individual projects topic, your group project topic, or a podcast that is directly relevant to the content of the course). Write a review of the positives and negatives of the podcast in terms of content and delivery. Be sure to comment on the relationship of the podcast to citizen journalism, user generated content (UGC) or do it yourself (DIY) media.
I found a podcast titled "The Armadillo Podcast," whose host Steve Phenix interviews interesting Austinites in order to convince his friend Galia, an Israeli woman in California, to move to Texas. On the latest podcast, he discussed the meaning of "Keep Austin Weird" and how that famous iconic phrase has become more mainstream. I enjoyed listening to the weekly phone call to Galia, who insisted the phrase just didn't make sense. The host played a few phone calls from Austin listeners, one who talked about how the Mangia dinosaur on top of Mangia's pizzeria was vandalized one night and how city and UT palentologists put the dinosaur back together. But I felt like the interview was way too long, and the commentary a bit awkward. I'd rather listen to something on NPR, where the audio is edited and put together in a more contextualized way. I'm sure Phenix comes form a journalist background; his father George (whom he featured last week) co-founded Texas Monthly. But since the point of his podcast was very hyperlocal, it seemed more do it yourself media.
Makes me sad that you have to pay for This American Life podcasts on Chicago Public Radio, though.
After how we talked about iPods already having the recording capacity built-in, the new video feature makes me wonder if that had already been the next step. I guess it was already set for its design:
see
The New York Times article Although I have to admit I'm definitely a lagger when it comes to adapting to technology. As of right now, I'm using wireless Internet access for the first time on the South Mall in front of the Tower using a borrowed laptop.
Minority journalism organizations have increased membership dramatically over the last few years. The last
Unity: Journalists of Color, Inc. convention in Washington, D.C. in August 2004 brought in thousands of working journalists from all over the country.
www.unityjournalists.org. Unity is made up of four organizations of color:
National Association of Black Journalists,
National Association of Hispanic Journalists,
Asian American Journalists Association and
Native American Journalists Association. Every four years the four join together for a massive collective summit, where training programs, seminars and panels seek to expand how the media can expand on hiring and assuring representative coverage.
Some argue such organizations deter the true sense of diversity because the organizations are not open to white journalists. Or others wonder why journalists of color would not simply join existing organizations such as
Society for Professor Journalists in order to take such steps toward diversity.
I agree organizations of color should also be more inclusive towards whites. Mixed feelings still exist within these groups when the suggestion of opening up the organization comes up. Most of the opinions guarding these organizations as to being only non-white probably stem from some of the same emotions that stirred these organizations into creation in the first place.
At the time AAJA was created, only a handful of journalists who felt like they belonged together existed. Stories of being the lone minority journalist permeates through all newsrooms, especially for new hires. These organizations were formed partly as a space for solidarity, for journalists of color to find companionship and strength in knowing they were not alone.
The historical hierarchy of white male leadership in newsrooms, which reflects American society, probably stands as the main reason why the traditional news media organizations such as
SPJ and
American Society of Newspaper Editors had mostly white membership.
This is not to say these traditionally white organizations don’t care about diversity.
SPJ’s Toolbox of Diversity contains some of the best training tools applicable for any newsroom.
ASNE hosts seminars and programs for minority journalists.
But journalists of color, at this day and age, have flourished in their own spaces through their organizations partly because they have been solely focused on diversity as a mission and had the opportunity to share those missions with others like themselves.
Some like broadcast news director Terry Heaton wonder if diversity has been too forced up on the newsroom. He
guest posted on Tim Rosen’s Pressthink, pointing out that the mere presence of journalists of color do not necessarily represent a diverse newsroom.
“If groups such as Unity really want to accomplish something, they would do well to examine what actually happens in newsrooms after minorities are hired, because it’s in the newsroom where the premise of the editorial diversity experiment often fails. I’ve had numerous black reporters either refuse to do “community” stories or get resentful when asked to cover any story involving blacks. The same is true with many gays, Asians, and Jews.”
I believe Heaton oversimplified his statements. Obviously, you cannot lump all black journalists or all white journalists together and expect them all to act the same. How many white journalists are expected to cover only politics? But at least you’re allowing a traditionally underrepresented community to enter the newsroom.
Journalist and blogger Tim Porter posted his
own reaction to Heaton’s as his personal assent as a journalist, which gives a reminder about how these topics, however sensitive, can bring out changes on more human levels.
He said: “Race is an uncomfortable subject and at times I, as a editor and as a person, felt discomfort being reminded of my own limited perceptions, but it challenged me and forced my way of thinking, that of my peers and that of those minority journalists to undergo scrutiny and debate. From that consideration came better decisions and, at times, better journalism.”
This argument for diversity does not weaken with the increased number of viewpoints to include. Instead, it awakens the role of the journalist to meet the challenge of accurate representation.
Rosen argues in a comment on Porter’s posting on diversity that diversity should not merely focus on race. He asks if groups like Unity could at least provide more recognition to other groups. I agree.
The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association has long rallied to join Unity as an underrepresented organization of journalists, but Unity board members have cautiously kept the membership to those of color. Both collaborate on similar issues, both have overlapping membership, but the two groups finally felt their missions were focused differently.
I believe
Unity has its place for minority journalists, but at some point we do need inclusion for all. For newspapers to accurately cover their community it is vital that journalists represent all of readership in full. The term “diversity” simply does not apply just to race, but to gender, sexual orientation, class, status, education..the list reads endless. And it will be a constant struggle for journalists to attempt to achieve representation of all it, but it is the will of the craft that dictates that.
