The intersection between weblogs and journalism

1
The intersection between weblogs and journalism

• Critical Issues in Journalism
• Luis Morais April 27, 2004

2
What is a blog?

• Web site where information is updated frequently
  and presented in reversed chronological order
  (new posts on top)
• Usually each post contains one or more links to
  other Web sites and usually theres also a list
  of the authors favorite bookmarks

3
What is a blog?

• Became popular since the summer of 1999 when Pyra
  Labs (now owned by search engine company Google)
  launched blogger.com
• Blogging technology gives, for the first time in
  history, the average person the ability to
  write, edit, design and publish their own
  editorial product (for free)
• To potentially be read and responded to by
  millions of people

4
What is a weblog, or blog?
5
What is a blog?

• Blogging software gives users a choice of
  templates, easy and fast registration
• Free hosting
• Free domain name
• http//example.blogspot.com
• Push button publishing for the people.
• Blogger.com

6
Blogs growing importance

• Like just about everything else, blogging
  changed forever on September 11, 2001. () (The
  attacks) created a huge appetite on the part of
  the public to be part of The Conversation, to
  vent and analyze and publicly ponder or mourn.
  Many, too, were unsatisfied with what they read
  and saw in the mainstream media.
• Matt Welch, The New Amateur Journalists Weigh
  In, Columbia Journalism Review, Sept. 2003

7
Rebellion against mainstream media?

• All the talking heads () kept saying that
  were gonna have to grow up, were gonna have to
  give up a lot of our freedoms. Or it was the
  Why do they hate us sort of teeth-gnashing. And
  I think there was a deep dissatisfaction with
  that.
• Glenn Reynolds, U of Tennessee law teacher,
  founder of instapundit.com (about 100,000 visits
  a week)

8
Blogs contribution to journalism

• Personality
• Eyewitness testimony
• Editorial Filtering
• Uncounted gigabytes of new knowledge
• Welch, CJR

9
Blogs vs. Mainstream

• Traditional journalism contracting,
  standardizing, homogenizing
• Blogs remind readers that reality is far more
  diverse and iconoclastic than its newsrooms
• Welch, CJR

10
Is blogging journalism?

• NO, according to Jay Rosen, journalism teacher at
  NYU
• Blogging is one universe. Its standard unit is
  the post, its strengths are the link and the low
  costs of entry, which means lots of voices.
  Journalism is another universe. Its standard unit
  is the story. Its strengths are in reporting,
  verification and access as in getting your
  calls returned.

11
Rosen

• Big Journalism frustrates and matters for the
  same reason its an institution, with the
  machinery set in place for extracting, checking,
  editing, packaging and distributing news and
  information over earthly expanse. By maintaining
  this machinery through time, and disciplining
  themselves with a code, the big organizations
  involved create an asset trust, reliability,
  credibility, visibility, brand, icon that is
  very hard to match or overcome.
• Blogging is not journalism. When we separate
  these two things, we honor both.

12
But

• Bloggers perform random acts of journalism
• Although vast majority of bloggers do not provide
• original reporting the heart of journalism
• When a blogger interviews an author about their
  new book, that is journalism. When an opinion
  columnist manipulates facts in order to create a
  false impression, that is not. When a blogger
  searches the existing record of fact and
  discovers that a public figures claim is untrue,
  that is journalism. When a reporter repeats a
  politicians assertions without verifying whether
  they are true, that is not.
• Rosen

13
Blogs participatory media ?

• (Rosens definition leaves) out a great mass of
  bloggers who are practicing what I call
  participatory media shaping, filtering,
  commenting, contextualizing, and
  disseminating--interacting with--the news reports
  that others have produced.
• And if they are left out, what's the problem
  with that? One problem is that we--and I am part
  of that great mass of non-journalist
  bloggers--think what we're doing is important.
  And if we can't apply a title like "journalism"
  to our work, how can we make others understand
  how important it is? ...
• JD Lasica (contributor about online media to The
  Washington Post, Salon, The Industry Standard,
  The American Journalism Review)
• (http//jdlasica.com)

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Blogs participatory media ?

• Participatory media and journalism are
  different, but online they exist in a shared
  media space. There are tremendous synergies
  possible between the two. I have no desire to
  conform my weblog to journalistic standards, or
  to remake journalism in my image. I want to find
  ways to leverage the strengths of both worlds to
  the mutual benefit of both.
• JD Lasica

15
Decentralized fact-checking army

• When the decentralized fact-checking army kicks
  into gear, it can be an impressive thing to
  behold. On March 30, veteran British war
  correspondent Robert Fisk, who has been accused
  so often of anti-American bias and sloppiness by
  bloggers that his last name has become a verb
  (meaning, roughly, "to disprove loudly, point by
  point"), reported that a bomb hitting a crowded
  Baghdad market and killing dozens must have been
  fired by U.S. troops because of some Western
  numerals he found on a piece of twisted metal
  lying nearby. Australian blogger Tim Blair, a
  free-lance journalist, reprinted the partial
  numbers and asked his military-knowledgeable
  readers for insight. Within twenty-four hours,
  more than a dozen readers with specialized
  knowledge (retired Air Force, former Naval Air
  Systems Command employees, others) had written in
  describing the weapon (U.S. high-speed
  antiradiation missile), manufacturer (Raytheon),
  launch point (F-16), and dozens of other minute
  details not seen in press accounts days and weeks
  later. Their conclusion, much as it pained them
  to say so Fisk was probably right.
• WELCH, CJR

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The memory hole an act of journalism?
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The memory hole

• Due to a Freedom of Information Act request from
  The Memory Hole, the Air Force has released 361
  photographs showing soldiers' remains arriving
  home. These are the images that the Pentagon
  prevented the public from seeing. See them here.
• Russ Kick (sites owner)
• http//www.memoryhole.org/

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Post on http//www.memoryhole.org

• Since March 2003, a newly-enforced military
  regulation has forbidden taking or distributing
  images of caskets or body tubes containing the
  remains of soldiers who died overseas.
• Immediately after hearing about this, I filed a
  Freedom of Information Act request for the
  following
• All photographs showing caskets (or other
  devices) containing the remains of US military
  personnel at Dover AFB. This would include, but
  not be limited to, caskets arriving, caskets
  departing, and any funerary rites/rituals being
  performed. The timeframe for these photos is from
  01 February 2003 to the present.
• I specified Dover because they process the
  remains of most, if not all, US military
  personnel killed overseas. Not surprisingly, my
  request was completely rejected. Not taking 'no'
  for an answer, I appealed on several grounds,
  andto my amazementthe ruling was reversed. The
  Air Force then sent me a CD containing 361
  photographs of flag-draped coffins and the
  services welcoming the deceased soldiers.
• Score one for freedom of information and the
  public's right to know.
• Russ Kick (sites owner)

19
NY Times, April 23, 2004
20
NY Times, April 23, 2004

• A New York Times/CBS News poll taken in December
  found that 62 percent of Americans said the
  public should be allowed to see pictures of the
  military honor guard receiving the coffins of
  soldiers killed in Iraq as they are returned to
  the United States. Twenty-seven percent said the
  public should not be.

21
Carey

• Journalism arose as a protest against
  illegitimate authority in the name of a wider
  social contract, in the name of the formation of
  a genuine public life and a genuine public
  opinion. Journalism can be practiced virtually
  anywhere and under almost any circumstances. Just
  as medicine, for example, can be practiced in
  enormous clinics organized like corporations or
  in one-person offices, journalism can be
  practiced in multinational conglomerates or by
  isolated freelancers.... The practice does not
  depend on the technology or bureaucracy. It
  depends on the practitioner mastering a body of
  skill and exercising it to some worthwhile
  purpose.
• James W. Carey, CBS Professor of International
  Journalism at Columbia University

22
Wonkette/Drudge gossip blogs
"I think it's implicit in the way that a website
is produced that our standards of accuracy are
lower. Besides, immediacy is more important than
accuracy, and humor is more important than
accuracy." Nick Denton, Wonkettes publisher
23
Blog ethics

• Dan Gillmor (San Jose Mercury News columnist,
  JMSC teacher, blogger)
• Accuracy or at least an explicit
  acknowledgement when a posting is only a rumor or
  otherwise poorly verified is more important
  than timeliness. Just as we tend to take some
  print and broadcast journalism with a large grain
  of salt, well have to learn to parse what we
  read online to develop a hierarchy of trust.

24
Blog ethics

• Aly Colon (Poynter Institutes Ethics Group
  Leader)
• The examination of the premise that we inhabit a
  brave, brand new world where old rules dont
  apply has been written about, and challenged by
  many people,
• New tools not cause us to discard the values we
  hold,
• The more transparent we are about who we are and
  what we do, the easier we make it for our news
  consumers to make up their own minds about the
  value we offer,

25
Blog ethics

• A Proposed Blogging Code of Ethics
• 1. Amateur Journalists are inherently biased. 
  What's crucial is not pure objectivity, but full
  disclosure.  It is the responsibility of Amateur
  Journalists to fully disclose their agenda and
  background somewhere on their site.  If a
  particular aspect of their background is
  especially relevant to a particular subject, that
  bias should be highlighted in any article on that
  subject.
• 2. Caveats are critical online.  Accuracy is
  still important, but sometimes it's OK to print
  information that you haven't confirmed with
  multiple sources.  Just make sure that you label
  it as such.  Never ever publish information that
  you know not to be true.  And if there's any
  doubt as to the accuracy of the information,
  caveat it clearly so that it's clear.
• 3. Blogging doesn't magically make you immune
  from Libel and Slander.  If your article isn't
  clearly marked as opinion, you should give the
  subject of your piece a chance to respond in
  print.  This means dropping them an email or
  picking up the phone.
• John Hiler (Microcontent news a blog about blogs
  and personal publishing)