Pinging for reply op-ed column published today.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/12/13/witted_1214.html
Citizen journalists: They don’t need to be regulated
By LEONARD WITT
Published on: 12/14/07
As the owner of the URL CitizenJournalism.org, I feel obligated to respond to David Hazinski’s opinion piece Thursday about citizen journalism, in which he wrote: “The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend” (”Unfettered ‘citizen journalism’ too risky, @issue).
He doesn’t think the formerly passive news media audience members are very trustworthy. He adds: “Journalism schools such as mine at the University of Georgia should add courses to certify citizen journalists in proper ethics and procedures, much as volunteer teachers, paramedics and sheriff’s auxiliaries are trained and certified.”
I agree with him that journalism schools should offer training for citizens interested in the news media. In fact, the Department of Communication at Kennesaw State University, in which I teach, is about to introduce a new concentration entitled Journalism and Citizen Media. Although we might offer a Citizen Media certificate, I am far more interested in helping future journalists understand the power of citizen media involvement. I am totally opposed to “monitoring and regulating this new trend.”
For example, mainstream media have been guilty of what Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte of the University of Texas calls “censorship by omission.” The voices of the poor, the disenfranchised and minority groups often go unheard. Now citizen participation is an opportunity to get the disenfranchised heard. Who is going to certify which of those voices is most trustworthy? Will it be the members of the journalism profession, who are 86 percent white and almost 100 percent middle class? I hope not.
snip
Needed: Regulation to Prevent Journalists-Turned-Professors from Embarrassing Themselves
December 13th, 2007 by Dan Gillmor
It’s hard to know where to begin in responding to David Hazinski’s “Unfettered ‘citizen journalism’ too risky,” an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he calls for regulation of citizen journalism:
Supporters of “citizen journalism” argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don’t provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn’t journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse. The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.
It is false, of course, that anyone who’s serious about this field argues that it’s entirely accurate or reliable (though it is often independent, and often covers what traditional media can’t or won’t spend time on). In fact, as many of us have been noting for years, accuracy ane reliability are key areas for improvement.
Then, having kindly allowed that this new media “has its place” — use the servant’s entrance, please — Hazinski removes it entirely from the realm of journalism, which is literally absurd.
And then, with the kind of hubris that sounds like a lampoon of a Big Media guy turned professor, he demands that the news industry regulate it all. (Could they first turn some of that regulatory sternness on themselves? More on that in a minute.)
Let’s note the one sound point in his generally bizarre piece: To the extent that traditional media organizations are going to bring their audiences into their journalism processes, they should insist doing things in an honorable and journalistically sound way. If he’d left it at that, Hazinski would have had a reasonable argument. But with dismaying lapses in fact and logic, he goes much further.
For example, consider this:
The premise of citizen journalism is that regular people can now collect information and pictures with video cameras and cellphones, and distribute words and images over the Internet. Advocates argue that the acts of collecting and distributing makes these people “journalists.” This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a “citizen surgeon” or someone who can read a law book is a “citizen lawyer.” Tools are merely that. Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals. Information without journalistic standards is called gossip.
The bogus logic is standard-issue for the naysayers. Unpacking it:
snip
Boy that’s pretty hard-hitting! < /s >
No longer can the elite mediots get by with spiking news about their beloved perverts.
Just look at all the revelations of $inator Hilldebea$t starting with the dropping of her H$U via the WSJ.
Then, the news of her CNN plants and other audience plants are out there with no spiking and filtering from our news sources.
Doesn’t appear this guy really “gets it” either. He began to get a little wild-eyed in his last paragraph.