Don’t get me started on my rant about how any idiot with a cellphone camera or a pencil thinks they can be a journalist. That’s precisely why the word has quotes around it in the title.
But if you were to get me started on this topic, I would point you to an outstanding overview of the influence that social media is now playing in our society.
The only trouble with the piece and Chris Brogan’s perspective is that he’s coming from it as a proponent of the good that social media can do for companies, brands and messages.
As a professional journalist, I am loathe to share my space with people who think a blog is the same as a newspaper or media outlet. The lines are blurring, but that only means that consumers (anyone who reads news or wants to devour information about the world around them) should be ever more vigilant about where they get their information.
We’ve all seen and received the emails about Bill Gates giving people money for sending emails. We’ve all gotten the notes from people on missing children who don’t exist. We’ve all seen Robin Williams’ supposed diatribe on Iraq and oil.
For the most part, those items are perpetuated because the majority of people don’t have the training to check facts and verify information. My fear—substantiated by the tsunami of misinformation that’s present on the Web—is that media outlets will start to look only at the beans and decide that Joe and Josephine Six-Pack are as good at typing out the news or sharing opinions as those of us with years of training.
Then we all lose because the citizen ‘journalist’ who replaces a trained reporter is dragging down the standard by which we all take for granted. And when that standard vanishes, then our best source of news is going to be what we can see and hear for ourselves.
That might be easier with cameras and audio coming in from everywhere, but it’s also akin to the Old West when prospectors were oblivious to events that happened outside of there immediate vicinity.
Are we headed there? I don’t know. People are still paying me to write while bloggers are still scraping adsense and other avenues to make a dime.
I just think that the thought leaders (is that still being used as a term?) should take a breath before trumpeting the benefits of the untrained troops—I should call them troupes because it’s mostly performance art—and give some credit to the established and trained journalists.
Seriously. This needs to happen before everything we learn is categorized as ‘news’.
Keep reading.
The truth is that professional journalists have several skills and abilities that set them worlds apart from the average skillset of the typical blogger. The ability to report fair and balanced information (F-you, Fox, for making me think of you when I type that phrase), coupled with the notion of what makes a solid story with appropriate fact checking and lead validation are just two facets of a professional that most bloggers (myself included) lack.
And yet, lots of hacks like me are taking a chunk out of the space normally reserved for traditional, professional journalists. Why? Because we’re faster (easier to be fast when you don’t report fairly or check your facts). Because we’re more flexible (our editor- ourselves- doesn’t care if the story pisses off sponsors because we don’t make money). Because we’re networkers (we spend a good chunk of our time connecting with other people).
The first two are obviously skewed towards agreeing that journalists rock far more than bloggers at doing a better job. But that third one? Hmm. Yes, SOME journalists get out there and make relationships happen. But would you say that the lion’s share do? Is that even NECESSARY to reporting good stories, etc? No. But it makes a difference.
And in the end, the bozo with the cell phone cam still can hand the $15,000 camera guy a defeat because if the bozo is THERE, the story is there. Right?
Better? no. But that’s not what makes the world spin, right?
Totally agree. I wouldn’t be fully ensconced in the social/new media movement if I didn’t think it had value. If I can bridge the gap, I’m valuable to the traditional guard of leading and web press (physical webs of newsprint, not electronic) and the person who wants all their news with a click.
And there’s nothing more valuable than timing and being where the news happens. The crux of the issue presents itself when the news organization decision makers have to choose between no story and a story that might be a little less polished.
Thanks for coming by and thanks for opening the conversation.
Well done. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for reading, Mari.
Jeff