Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism
Gillmor calls the advent of non-professional journalism “one of the healthiest media developments in a long time.” Do you agree? What do you think of Wikipedia? Is it a credible source, as Gillmor says? Why or why not? Gillmor cites examples of independent journalists being able to support their efforts through advertising or direct support from readers. Do you expect this business model to grow? What does this mean for traditional media outlets?
January 19th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
As stated above, Dan Gillmor calls non-professional journalism “one of the healthiest media developments in a long time.” I agree with Gillmor that the proliferation of voices in the media is encouraging. As far as I am concerned the more voices, viewpoints and opinions, the better. Whatever it takes to get the American public interested in what is going on in the world is a good thing in my eyes.
Perhaps big media conglomerates are just too exclusive for the Average Joe and thus making media smaller and more personalized is the answer. Allowing anyone to give their thoughts may be the one thing that can finally turn society members into participants rather than people too comfortable in their apathy to notice the world’s problems.
But maybe not.
I also fear that the proliferation of media sources has made it too hard to tell who is real and who is faking it. Sites like Wikipedia are great first sources of information, but I worry that non-professional journalists may stop there. I think Wikipedia is great, but not to be taken as fact without further investigation.
What I liked most about Gillmor’s detailing of Wikipedia was when he said “when anyone can edit what you’ve just posted, fairness becomes essential.” I think this concept is just as important in news organizations. Still only about half of the news publications I read online give the telephone number and/or email address of the reporter. Even less allow readers to comment directly on stories. The more transparency a news organization offers the more trustworthy I find them to be. An open dialogue with readers is one of the great advantages of online journalism, so why is this not the standard?
In order for the traditional media to compete with non-professional journalism they have to form the same connections and open dialogue with readers. The public has made it clear: they no longer want to hear people talking from their soap box that they cannot talk back to.
January 19th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Blogs and wikis facilitate broader and more inclusive civic engagement, but I feel Gilmor is too optimistic about their potential to become credible news sources. As a journalist, blogs and wikis are great for leads because they are timely, imaginative and plentiful. They expedite public dialogue and make it available to anyone with access to a computer. But just as a journalist wouldn’t trust an anonymous web author as a source, I don’t feel ordinary people should go to the blogosphere for news.
When print and broadcast journalists write stories they do so as representatives of a news organization that holds a degree of public trust. Stories are reported, facts are checked and articles written. They then go to editors for at least a second and third round of review. A scrupulous system of checks and balances has thus far done a respectable job of gleaning fact from fiction. Theoretically, blogs and wikis entries can be put through the same regimen, but I doubt this is typically the case.
This all may be a reflection of my deep-seated distrust for technology, and its capacity to unite and alienate at the same time. As I’ve said before, I fear the anonymity people enjoy on the web may ultimately do more harm than good. Blogs and wikis have the potential to revolutionize the world of news, but as of yet they are far from transparent news mediums. Because they are anonymous, and barely transparent, they are for all purposes unaccountable in the way “professional” journalists are.
I read blogs because they are innovative, fresh, original and often well-informed expressions of what is going on in the world. When they are more systematized, transparent and securely authored by journalists with demonstrated commitments to standards of fairness and verification, they’ll have my ear.
And on the issue of blog authors courting advertisers: Never. Don’t do it.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
While I do see the benefit of blogs and online news sources, I think that the immediacy of the Internet is a detriment. I know that when I write a story and put it online I always have in the back of my mind the idea that I can go back and change it later. When the story is going to be in print, I’m more careful, because if you mess up in print you’ll have to run a correction.
Wikis etc are good resources when you start your research; I would use them to orient myself. But I don’t trust them a legitimate sources of information. Bottom line: a lot of the people contributing to these online databases may not be experts in the field that they’re covering. I’d rather get a book, read the author’s bio, and then judge if I can trust them. Anon is not a name I confidently trust.
Also, I think Gilmor thinks Wikipedia is a lot more legitimate than it really is.
I have never been allowed to use Wiki to do real research. If you want to know about bands, sure. But if you’re looking up info on Iraqi politics, I’d go for the scholarly texts.
Still, blogs do facilitate conversation online in a whole new way. Blogs allow smaller news stories to get more play, and people who care about these stories can comment and participate. That’s what I’ve found with my own blog. One of my posts, on a 16-year-old shot in Little Village, has been read more than any of the more recent ones. I’ve also had a few people from the neighborhood respond, leaving “RIP” messages for the boy. When I saw that I was like, “Whoa, people are actually reading this?” I guess they went online to search for more info on the boy, something beyond the newspaper. My story didn’t say much new, but at least on a blog people could comment and respond. So, I see the positive there.
Of course, as a journalist, I selfishly don’t want the Average Joe to take over the news realm. That’s our job. So, I’d say blogs are good for commenting and discussion, but for real news, perhaps only the trained journalists should hit the keyboard.
As for advertising… I have to admit the idea of making money off of ads was appealing for a minute or two, but in the end, I hate pop-up ads, so why inflict them on other people. Also, what am I going to sell on my crime blog? “Clue” and spy pens? I don’t think so.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
*Gillmor. See what I mean about the danger of the Internet? I just Medill F-uped that response.
January 20th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I agree with Gillmor in as far as nonprofessionals can provide alternative viewpoints and sources that are underrepresented in the “mainstream media” (although I hate that term). Especially when foreign war coverage has become so expensive and dangerous, U.S. media may have no choice but to rely more and more on native reporters, photographers, camera operators, etc. in Iraq and other war zones.
However, I think the journalist still has a crucial role to play as gatekeeper, letting people know what’s fact and what’s fiction. The newspaper I used to work for was in the hometown of Korey Rowe, a young Army veteran who became a huge 9/11 conspiracy theorist and made a “documentary” called “Loose Change” that alleged the U.S. government had a role in the terrorist attacks.
He might consider himself a truth-teller, but I certainly don’t. My newspaper did several articles on him (including one when he was arrested for alleged desertion), and while we let him say his piece, we also made it clear that his view was pretty out of the mainstream.
Unfortunately, if you want the government to “investigate 9/11!,” you may only consider his Web site reliable, and not my paper.
Thankfully, most of the things I’ve seen on Wikipedia are more reliable than “Loose Change.” Still, I wouldn’t use it as a primary news source for the reasons everyone else mentioned.
I’ve found that the blogs I trust most are those by journalists because I know that they know what they’re talking about. One of my favorites, www.getreligion.org, sells CafePress items with its logo, but most of the contributors have day jobs, so they don’t rely on that for income.
But if Brenna decides to sell “Watching the Detective” T-shirts, I’ll totally buy one
January 20th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Argh!
That should be www.getreligion.org and “Watching the Detectives.”
January 20th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I agree with Gillmor that non-professional journalism has been a healthy development. If nothing else, the ability for people to easily get online and get their own ideas out encourages them to learn and form opinions. This is an area where most Americans lack, in my opinion.
I know a lot of people are skeptical about how truthful the information they’re seeing on major networks is because they know that what keeps those networks running are the advertising dollars. A lot of times, independent journalists will cover different issues, or cover the same issues differently, and people will seek their points of view when they’ve become exasperated with what’s available.
I think Wikipedia is a great development, but I consider it more pop culture than hard academia. I use it as a casual reference all the time, but there is a danger in citing that information. If something grabs me on Wikipedia and I want to use it, I look it up somewhere else as well because I don’t know who the last person was to edit it. I remember reading an entry recently about a Lebanese army general and in his Wikipedia entry it called him “el ahbal”, which means “the idiot” in Arabic.
I agree with Gillmor about WikiTravel. Although I’ve never used it myself, I am more frequently finding myself checking out user reviews of places before I decide to go whether it’s a restaurant, a museum or a cafe. That type of networking has been hugely successful, I think.
I think independent journalists supporting themselves through advertising is perfectly fine. With more money they can continue to develop their skills and reach. I don’t know how big this trend will grow, however, because so far all I’ve seen in a big way is GoogleAds.
January 20th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
I agree that the proliferation of non-professional journalism through the internet has been a healthy development. The more voices there are, the more evenly power is distributed.
Pages like Wikipedia allow information to be reported through a number of different voices at once. This can perhaps best be observed through the “discussion” page on each Wikipedia article. Not only can you read the article to find out what users have agreed upon as an explanation of a subject, you can also see what they’re still debating. You can even join in, if you want.
As others have said, Wikipedia is not edited closely enough to be considered the final word on any subject, but it is certainly a starting point. I find I put more faith in a Wikipedia article the more users it’s had participating in its creation. The wisdom of the crowd is the whole reason Wiki works. I also put more trust in articles that look and sound professional and that link to other professional Web sites. Someone could write any old lie in a credible, professional manner, and that wouldn’t make it true. But when I see poor spelling and grammar, I wonder if the author is not just a 10-year-old.
I have a friend with a language-resource Web site who has begun making money through Google ads. She couldn’t possibly support herself on what she earns from the site, but it has been a valuable supplemental source of income for her. The Google ads are nice, as they are too small and simple to overpower the content of the site and as they are tailored to relate to topics discussed on the site. I think more people will use advertising to make money on the internet, but it seems like only part of the answer to the question of how to profit from the Web.
January 20th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I agree with Gillmor that non-professional journalism is an important source of news. Alternative news sources, while not always reliable as fact, help to provide alternative viewpoints and ideas that are often ignored or overlooked by the professional journalists.
One of the things that makes America such a wonderful place is the freedom citizens have to express their ideas. The free flow ideas is what makes our country what it is today. Non-professional new sources keep us professional journalists on our toes. We now have to compete for the public’s attention.
I do feel that professional are held to a higher standard when it comes to reporting the news than alternative news sources. Where a website or a blog, when the name of a major media outlet is behind it, people expect a lot more accuracy. This can lead people who are writing blogs to feel as if they don’t need to double check facts or make sure that their sources are being truthful. This is especially true of websites such as Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is an amazing database of information, but it is not a good source since it can be so easily changed. I have many friends who have gone in and played with entries just for fun. They’ve changed Mark Twain’s birthday, the discoveries made by Einstein, etc. I cannot imagine that my friends are the only ones to play around with Wikipedia, and that is why people should be wary of Wikipedia entries. They often provide a good background on the subject, but facts from Wikipedia need to be verified.
Even without the loops most media outlets have to jump through to prove accuracy, independent journalists are widely read. And if people are willing to read them (and want to read them), advertisers will jump at the chance to access these potential customer, thus keeping independent journalists in business.
I believe that this trend of independent journalism will continue. It’s not going away. People want news not controlled by the government, big corporations or anyone else. They see these independent journalists as being truly independent, unlike traditional media outlets. Journalists that have been found to have fabricated their stories have shaken the public’s trust in the media, which only makes independent news sources that much more intriguing. In order for media outlets to compete, they will have to prove they are willing to cover both sides of the story and that they will be more responsive to the public’s need for truthful, fact-checked, un-fabricated stories. To win back our viewers and readers, the media needs to win back the publics trust.
January 21st, 2008 at 12:14 am
I agree that non-professional journalism is important to the development of the profession. Many already stated that more voices mean more viewpoints. Having a variety of sources to present a more complex picture of an issue is a great thing.
I think Wikipedia is nice as far as showcasing how amazingly collaborative the Internet can be. If I ever need some loose background information on something I use it, but I would never take it as absolute truth. Wikipedia is a convenient, quick, first reference. Though contributors to the site do a decent job of regulating inaccuracies sometimes, the vandalism that can–and do–occur on a user edited site deters me from taking it too seriously.
Still, Wiki shows that citizen journalists are becoming the best “watch dogs” since they monitor each other as well as the topics they are covering. People call each other on biases and underreporting on the site all the time–if it is a popular enough topic.
While I do expect more people to use ads to support their efforts, I do not think it could sustain the average independent journalist. It takes skill and a degree of luck to acquire the amount of attention that could attract major advertising dollars.
However, traditional media outlets could use this business model to capitalize on the use of the Internet for news. The notoriety of a print publication like NYT could definitely get advertisers to pay them for space on their page because advertisers know people will frequent the NYT site. Popularity is essential to attracting online advertisers.
January 21st, 2008 at 1:18 am
To an extent, I agree with Gillmor that civilian journalism has been great for the media. The best part about having independents and everyday people blogging is that they are filing in the gaps in news. As Gillmor mentioned in the reading, the Independent Media Center reported more thoroughly than the mainstream media during the protests in San Francisco after the U.S. invaded Iraq. “… The independent journalists revealed several cases of police brutality that the major media had missed.”
As most of us learned in Intro to Journalism at some point, journalism’s first loyalty is to its citizens. As long as the news is getting out to the public, it is then up to the public to determine which news it wants to take to heart. Charlie Madigan, a former columnist at the Chicago Tribune, repeatedly told me the role of the journalist is to get the news out into the open and let the public make its own decisions about what it reads. Extrapolating his comment further, I think most bloggers are just trying to express the news and offer some commentary to promote discussion. At least I hope that bloggers aren’t actively trying to mislead the public.
The more voices heard, the merrier. These citizen journalists add more thoughts to the marketplace of ideas and allow for a more informed public. The more you know, the better you can judge what’s really going on in the news.
Wikipedia is amazing and worrisome at the same time. If I need to look up a random fact or read a short background on a topic, Wikipedia is where I go. It gives me a taste of the subject and serves as my preliminary source. It is definitely not a credible source. Once you get the basics from Wikipedia, you can search out verifiable information from traditional scholarly sources.
What worries me about Wikipedia is that some people actually do cite it as truth. While there are many accurately posted facts on Wikipedia, not everything is the solid truth. Some of my younger brother’s friends cite Wikipedia in their research projects. It makes me shudder whenever I hear that. While I think Wikipedia is a great tool and provides hours of entertainment, it’s scary to think that some youngsters are relying so heavily on Wikipedia for verifiable information.
January 21st, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I am really not sure how I feel about non-professional journalism as a healthy media development. I am very hung up on the “advocacy” writing that he discusses in the article, and see it as a major stumbling block for independent journalism. It is very easy to pass something off as credible to someone who may not have a lot of knowledge about a topic, and the motives behind the posting are not always clear.
One example I keep coming back to is issues in health. There are blogs devoted to advising people on issues of health or how to handle ailments. It is relatively easy to misrepresent yourself as an expert, and the motivation could be for promoting something that writer is making money on, not necessarily for helping readers.
I think Wikipedia is, for the most part, a credible source, because of all the attention it gets and the editors that oversee content, it is less likely that you will get completely false information. There is transparency that I think lends it some credibility. Like the other people in the class have said, I hope people use wikipedia as a starting block and continue their research with more expert sources.
I do expect the business model of making money through advertising or reader support to grow, mostly because everyone is trying to figure out how to make money of the web and using the web is becoming more and more integral to people’s daily lives, but I foresee traditional media outlets still being relevant as something that connects a community.
January 21st, 2008 at 11:59 pm
As for Wikipedia, absolutely not. No. No. No. I like it as a way of learning about which was the third track on a new wave album from 1982, but otherwise, no.
It doesn’t matter to me if someone fixes a bad article 10 minutes after someone edits a mistake in or decides to goof around with an article. Not if I’m one of the people who happens to look at that article within the 10 minutes. If I’m going to consider a source definitive, I can’t wait around to see if the facts change in a few minutes.
As for non-professional journalists, this is not a new development. Ghandi published “Indian Opinion” as a way of getting attention to the Indian plight in South Africa. Not exactly Big Media, to use Gilmor’s capitalization. There’s a whole book - “Infamous Scribblers” - on the pamphlets and broadsheets of the revolutionary period. The press used to be owned by whomever could put together a printing press. The technology behind the “new media” is new, but the theory behind it is old.
Actually, it’s probably more traditional than what we consider traditional. Ben Franklin cranking out Poor Richard’s Almanac is more old school than Hearst and Pulitzer. Maybe the 20th century was the blip, not the rule.
I’ve always resented attempts to professionalize journalism. It’s a skilled trade, not a profession. But I think Gilmor’s distinction between Big Media and scrappy young up-and-comers in the indy media is missing one important fact. Some of the “citizen journalists” are just good. He mentioned Wonkette at one point. Former blogger turned Time.com editor. I met her once. Very impressive, talented reporter.
People like Wonkette (Ana Marie Cox) and others found a way to showcase their talents. In her case, she parlayed that into a “Big Media” job. Other bloggers are awful, just awful. But to say, or even imply, that one medium provides better information than another is ridiculous. It comes down to the people who produce the information, not the medium by which it is transmitted.
January 22nd, 2008 at 1:53 am
I think Wikipedia is a wonderful manifestation of the Democracy of Ideas. Let the people decide! The internet community could’ve turned it into an infinite wall of graffiti, but instead, users cranked out an impressively accurate and reliable living, breathing encyclopedia. Delightful! There are bad grapes mucking up entries, sure, but for the most part, truth prevails. I’m terrified that high schoolers are using Wikipedia in research papers, but for the most part, I find it comforting that I can zip to Wikipedia to look up the name of Royal Trux’s first album, confident that anonymous cyber-editors would rather give me the correct info than mess with my mind.
One differentiation I always make when evaluating Wikipedia articles for validity is the citations. The citations at the bottom of the article are an incredible conglomeration of primary sources. I hear a rumor that a director said such-and-such about his movie. I could spend all day scrolling through Google, or I could see the rumor printed on Wikipedia, click on the citation, and zoom to the alleged comment in an interview printed in the New York Times. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s an impressive way to compile the efforts of many civilian journalists.
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:03 am
As chance would have it, my attitude toward most blogs and other forms of “personal journalism” is just about the same as my attitude toward Wikipedia. Great fun, and very often a pretty good source of entertainment, commentary, and background information — but to be approached with caution. There’s a reason journalism schools, talented and experienced editors, and magazine research departments exist: certain standards must be upheld in the propagation of news and information.
And from a different perspective, what about the integrity of the language? It’s our job to uphold that, too (though I fear I might not be doing the best job at 1 a.m. …), and personal blogs and Wikipedia certainly don’t do a great job at grammar and spelling.
On a completely different note, I was interested in Gillmor’s mention of Nick Denton and Gawker Media. Lots of people have been buzzing lately about whether Gawker itself (but not necessarily Wonkette, Defamer, Jezebel, Fleshbot or any of the others) has jumped the shark. From this reader’s perspective, when you eliminate “Ask Tionna,” you eliminate me, too.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:17 am
I agree that non-professional journalism is a positive development and should not be a scapegoat for all forms of media irresponsibility, which it has become. Yes, there are downsides to independent journalism (lack credibility, possibility for bias, etc.), but in the open market, news consumers should be responsible enough to do their own research and discover an outlet that suits their personal newsgathering needs. To some that may mean relying exclusively on news reported by major corporate media groups, which are more publicly accountable, and to others it means digging to find a blog so obscure it remains completely free from influence of any kind.
The backlash against Wikipedia is similarly overblown. Yes, it is a public forum, but why should this distinction automatically disqualify it as a way to get a general sense of the background facts on any given issue? If I’m a reporter writing an article on Barack Obama, I surely would not navigate to his Wikipedia page and take that information as the gospel truth, but I would probably stop there early on in my research as a way to INFORM the facts I have already gathered. If, for instance, I come across an interesting anecdote about Obama’s childhood on the Wikipedia site, I might check into how they sourced it and then consult that source myself. Sure, Wikipedia can be a crutch for the lazy journalist, but sourcing is just as important as it ever was in reporting the news. Before the rise of the internet, journalists manage to interview other people than those who happened to be sitting in the coffee shop in the newspaper’s lobby. The success of a news outlet rests on the notion that actual in-depth reporting is being conducted, which is plainly apparent to virtually anyone reading the publication.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Wikipedia is hypothetically a great idea, drawing on the knowledge of the many instead of the few. Like everyone before me has said, for the site to be trustworthy, every page would need to be edited constantly. And of course, that isn’t practical.
I find the idea of Wikipedia having certain articles labeled as “suitable to print” appealing because I would probably trust their information to be correct. However, it certainly would make the other articles seem even less reliable. But maybe that’s not a bad thing. I just wonder if the public would be restricted from editing the “suitable to print” articles. If so, it would take away the appeal of the site: democracy.
Kayla talked about the importance of transparency in the media today. Yes, transparency is crucial in maintaining the audience’s trust. In certain ways it is easy to increase transparency, which is also influenced by the audience’s ability to interact with the media. In recent years, quite a few newspapers have appointed a public editor to communicate with the readers about the newspaper’s work. But it is very difficult to allow readers to comment on the bottom of every article on a Web site. That requires a huge amount of oversight by the Web editors, who must spend time sorting through the submitted comments to make sure they should be allowed on the site. The editors don’t really censor the comments, but if they don’t watch the comments carefully, the site can degrade into an off-topic or even offensive conversation. At the paper I worked for last summer, editing comments became a full-time job for one of the copy editors. And at a point when papers are cutting back on their staffs, creating an unnecessary job is impractical.
Call me too traditional, but I believe that if bloggers want to establish journalistic integrity with their audience, they need to be careful about their sources of revenue. I think it’s acceptable for a blogger to have advertisements on his Web site, and Allbritton’s idea of asking for donations seems all right. But say that a pro-war Republican organization had offered to fund his trip and he accepted. In my mind, that would compromise his integrity because I wouldn’t trust him to give an accurate account of the war.
January 28th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Gillmor’s article is a case study in ignoring the complexity of the future of the relationship between journalists and bloggers. No one in this class will dare say that blogging and the web hasn’t altered journalism positive ways since the advent of the Internet. I mean w grew up in blogs, ate them for breakfast practically.
But all the same (and lord knows I am not trying to pretend like I have the answers splayed out on a silver platter) it seems like we ignore the difficult unfolding realities of citizen journalism.
Gilmore starts this chapter off as saying that in the age of the Internet we have moved beyond the “pallid consumerism” of the last half of the century of journalism. Boy did this rub me the wrong way, consider it seems like journalism has become more and more intergraded with marketing now that we have the grand old Internet. I mean just look at the changes in Medill. The focus on the reader may be democratizing but it also leans the writer into the world of advertising and consumerism.
I agree with Gilmore that blogs can be astounding acts of civic engagement and should be valued that way. But does being civically engaged equate journalism? If someone blogs their opinions why should we consider that different than someone having a loud conversation on the train? And would we ever consider the latter an act of journalism?