No time like NOW to give authority to the truth

I wasn’t particularly struck by this article in Salon about a new book on conspiracy theories until I read the last line, stated by the book’s author.

David Aaronovitch: When there is no authority to the truth, prejudices thrive.

I feel that statement’s weight as I grow concerned about the fear mongering we all hear about, or when I get another liberal-hating joke emailed to me from a family member.

I pause and wonder how my voice can speak not just truth-to-power, but truth-to-overwhelming noise on the internet.

Here’s that Salon piece: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/02/03/david_aaronovitch_conspiracy_theories/index.html

It’s a grim argument against crowd sourcing

In case you don’t follow Clay Shirkey on Twitter, I noticed that he sent this tweet out, interestly, without comment:

cshirky “Many of Moore’s eye-witness tweets from Ft. Hood had no value whatsoever, except as entertainment and tragi-porn.” http://bit.ly/1dqwLP

Here is the article:  NSFW: After Fort Hood, another example of how ‘citizen journalists’ can’t handle the truth by Paul Carr. He also says in it:

Two weeks ago, I wrote here about how the ‘real time web’ is turning all of us into inhuman egotists. How we’re increasingly seeing people at the scene of major accidents grabbing their cellphones to capture the dramatic events and share them with their friends, rather than calling 911.

That reminded me of a traumatic moment I had at Grand Central the day a steam pipe burst, killing one driver and injuring dozens. The ground was shaking, the noise was tremendous, some people were running past me like startled deer….and there was a group of people standing in the street, shooting the swirling tower of steam with their cell phones. They were oblivious of the danger or fear around them. Knowing it was their first response within minutes of the event, it was an odd site. (However, thanks to one of them, I’m able to link to a scene of the event and give you more context!)

The level of protest like Carr’s is rising against news organizations working with everyday people who happen to be armed with recording equipment. Perhaps it’s partly motivated by journalists feeling a desire for job protection, but there is also truth to what Carr says. This is an important conversation for journalists to have now, especially if any of us want to use crowd source reporting for real, going forward.  It’s an evolving form of journalism, so it is important for us to help define it–on air, via twitter, etc.

I’d be curious to hear other journalists’ responses to Carr’s argument. My response? The tools are out there. The “reporting” is going to happen. Here is our opportunity to talk with potential amateur reporters about the real Elements of Journalism and empower them to respond to events with the genuine instincts of a reporter as explained in Rosensteil & Kovach’s book. I say invite them to work with us. Devote the time to  proper training, both passively through broadcast and directly through meet-ups and station or newsroom talks open to the public.

If you didn’t watch the video by This American Life at the end of Carr’s post, it’s too much to explain, but one troubling scene is when the school administration decides the best way to handle all this “reporting” by the students is to destroy their homemade cameras. Trying to dampen any person’s impulse to share the story of what they witness, I think, is a terrible idea, and one we have seen many governments select as the most effective and even “moral” option. I would prefer to spend my time encouraging more people to participate in the elements of life around them and arm them to properly use the social tools we now have. We are in an exciting time of civic life, where more information is perhaps the cause of more participation. That can’t be a bad thing.

No Impact Week

Yes, I joined the 4000 who have signed up to experiment with the Huffington Post to imitate Collin Beavan’s year of living a life on the planet with zero impact. No, not a gimmick, and yes, harder than it sounds.

I’ll be adding blog posts and comments on the Massachusetts group site. Already, this experiment has compelled me to buy produce with no packaging from a nearby farm and start a tiny pile of compost.  I’ll blog & take photos as I try to adjust–even small changes require an adjustment in expectations and planning.

Why did I join? A lot of what Collin attempted to do for one year is the same in philosophy as what I enjoy about the Mennonites’ beliefs and practices, and it reminds me of the life I didn’t even realize I had forgotten about, growing up each summer on my grandparents’ farm. I know these old ways that are better for the planet, better for my health and better for my family. I feel like I’m going home.

There is another reason for me to join: this is the kind of journalism I most want to be part of and it is instructive for me to be on the citizen end for a time. Already I understand a lot more about the level of commitment and the effort it requires for each participant to make a meaningful contribution. I also see how important it is for each of us to have a forum for connecting to each other and sharing ideas/photos/comments spontaneously.

Build a wall, or is it a dam?

There is a fatal flaw in David Simon’s understanding of today’s news reader that allows him to make this assertion in his call for subscription-only news:

For example, if The Baltimore Sun’s product isn’t available in any other fashion than through subscription—online or off—and if there is no profit to be had in delivering the paper product to homes at existing rates, then by all means, jack up those rates—raise hard-copy prices and drive as many readers as possible online, where you charge less, but at a distinct profit.

That flaw is the assumption that if readers encountered an internet devoid of free “big house produced” news, they would all flock to subscribe to those few reliable news sources.  Today’s news reader isn’t simply a surfer looking for quick, free info. Today’s news reader has savvy reading habits far beyond that, to a point where they compare stories, add their own expertise and often their own media.

Up to the 4th page of Simon’s article–which I read online, for free, after the link was shared with me on Twitter–I wanted to believe in his pay-for-content model. But I can’t swallow the comparison of online news consumers with cable television consumers. Yes, many pay a subscription for more, often better tv content. But in an age of on-demand, on DVD and available-for-download programs, the act of watching cable television is becoming old-fashioned, too. If we presume the public will continue to sit and consume content on a producer’s time schedule with a limited set of tools (a remote and a screen), we miss entirely the attitude of today’s news consumer.

As I read on about Simon’s models for his subscriber plan, I puzzled at his limited notion of what a news story really is, or what purpose it should serve, other than to generate an income for the reporter.

Here is a back-of-the-envelope plan. In a metro region the size of Baltimore, where 300,000 once subscribed to a healthy newspaper, imagine an initial market penetration of a tenth of that—30,000 paid subscribers (in a metro region of more than 2.5 million), who are willing to pay $10 per month. This is less than half their previous Sun home-delivery rate for the only product in town that covers local politics, local culture, local sports, and financial news—using paid reporters and paid editors to produce a consistent, professional product.

Where has Simon been while bloggers and startup news organizations become worthy competitors with established news organizations, even gaining press cred at the White House? Does he think they’ll just go away, or decide they had better charge a subscription rate too? It’s laughable to think the Baltimore Sun is the only entity covering local politics, culture, etc., that matters. A brief Google search turns up dozens of pages of information, from reviews to aggregated stories by block, to crime mapping.

Oh, what’s this: www.afro.com ? News coverage in Baltimore specifically targeted towards a community with special interests? The third hit on Google’s list is a window into the African-American community in Baltimore, full of stories about politicians, music, food and neighbors. Why should this content have to compete to get into the Sun when it can be viewed, moderated and shared online for free? Is it less of an authority on the news in that community? Forget vetting stories for sites like this. They live and die on their reputation the same as any news source and they answer to their community. It’s time to get over these notions of “front page” and “above the fold”.  Lots of people are providing good content and sometimes they cover new or underserved areas.

Articles like Simon’s remind me of the story of the formation of the American Medical Association as a response by doctors to the shannanigans of  the numerous snake oil salesman. They saw a need to establish medical authority for the sake of the consumer and thus created an exclusive organization that led to the accrediting process MD’s have to follow now.  Perhaps that was the right thing to do for health care, but I don’t see how creating this notion of authority to separate journalists from the fray (let’s call Simon’s proposal what it really is), does any service for transparency, civic dialog or the distribution of important information.  One-way, authoritative journalism made a few people rich, but it also limited the flow of information.

Now an exponential number of people are out there reporting. It’s up to those of us who care about getting the facts out  for the public to act upon, to employ our skills and our devotion to journalism.  It’s time to teach the man to fish. He’s already in the flood.

The new way is two-way in Journalism

In Brian Lehrer’s conversation with Chris Anderson, author of FREE: The Future of a Radical Price, Lehrer questions Anderson’s notion that today’s journalists will evolve to be editors/coaches of unpaid, amateur content producers. It may sound like older journalists grasping at the straws of job security, but that’s where we are headed, and their experience is sorely needed.

With the great capacity we now have to disseminate information online, anyone who gathers facts on a story and posts it can be a reporter.  NYU’s Jay Rosen calls this new reporting citizen journalism, “when the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another.”  Rosen says this combination of bloggers, readers and the internet has the potential to be strong. It also has the power to empower, if more people of varied experience, age, race and interests are able to express more diverse viewpoints.

What is needed for this immense gathering of voices is strong leadership from editors willing to hold the bar high. Reporters must continue to produce the very best stories, videos and broadcasts. With so much noise online, news consumers are developing strong filters and losing patience. Those who want to be heard will have to be reliable, ring clearer and have a brighter tone, and that takes collaborating with a good editor.

Smart editor/coaches are already emerging. The former political organizer-turned-Propublica editor Amanda Michel is taking a serious bite out of the stimulus bill with her thousand-plus citizen recruits.  She tries to make it clear what the editor-writer relationship will be right from the start. Michel told Poynter.com in a recent interview:

There is no ‘litmus test’ for who can be a citizen journalist. I don’t operate with a Platonic ideal in mind. However, the Web enables self-selection. Many get involved because they want to improve media and they’re particularly interested in, say, the environment. When I promote projects I try to clearly communicate what skills people should have and how much time is required of them. This is a self-selecting process, and I can recruit a better network by acknowledging this.

The internet has changed the one-way flow of information forever, allowing reporters and sources to become collaborators. They are more powerful together, shining bright lights in more dark corners. Journalism by its very nature compels the older, more seasoned practitioners, who say they are passionate about speaking truth to power, to give up their position as the only sources of verifiable news, a specialty they use to be able to charge for, and move over. Journalists who resist the new, two-way flow, rather than define their role and lend their skills, will eventually be overwhelmed by a new era of journalism where the storytellers and their audiences search for the Truth together.

Live blog: Obama’s address to joint session

Finally I get it. I understand now what it is I believed in on voting day in 2008. Hearing Obama speak to the country and hearing him challenge us on such a personal level–to care for ourselves, protect our children from debt, improve ourselves and hold our legislators accountable to bringing better policies in to law–that is what inspired me before the election and what I look forward to for the next 8 years.

I’m so glad a twitter alert from a friend responding to tonight’s speech to a joint session on O’s budget reminded me to turn on my radio. It was heartening to hear the lively hooting & hollering from congress…and made me so curious to see, I finally went to the television.  It was a bonus to see the eager smiles of some lawmakers when their priorities were discussed.

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What a fantastic idea–asking every American to get some education. “No more quitting on yourself or your country.” Volunteerism in exchange for college credits?! National service? New Hatch & Kennedy bill?Awesome.

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This idea of shining a light on all the unbudgeted items gave me pause. No kidding–we don’t know the price of war? We never budgeted for natural disasters? Again, his agenda is to keep reminding congress that a new era of governing is here: one where the needs of the public are foremost in each lawmaker’s minds.

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Extra long pause for the military support comment. Making sure everybody stands? About time we put money where vets need it most–in recovering from certain trauma from serving in the ME.  YEAH! CLOSING GITMO! Joint chiefs clapping for the “we don’t torture” comment.

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“In our hands lies the ability to shape”….calling out examples of ordinary citizens doing the obvious & right thing….this is how Obama is teaching the rest of us to redefine ourselves and make simple choices to take small actions for each other and improve our communities.

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“tells us about the people who sent us here”….O is always reminding congress–an audience used to power and privilege–that they are public servants. All of us watching are also reminded that those men & women work for us and our country. That implies our involvement, our need to talk with those public servants in order to shape this world together.