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Unfettered ‘citizen journalism’ too risky
Here’s what a journalism educator says about what I do and my response is below the fold. Hardly any foul language.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Having just anyone produce widely distributed stories without control can have the reverse effect from what advocates intend. It’s just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere.
Journalism organizations should head that off. Citizen reports can be a valuable addition to news and information flow with some protections:
• Major news organizations must create standards to substantiate citizen-contributed information and video, and ensure its accuracy and authenticity.
• They should clarify and reinforce their own standards and work through trade organizations to enforce national standards so they have real meaning.
• Journalism schools such as mine at the University of Georgia should create mini-courses to certify citizen journalists in proper ethics and procedures, much as volunteer teachers, paramedics and sheriff’s auxiliaries are trained and certified.
Journalists generally don’t like any kind of standards or regulation. Many argue that standards could infringe on freedom of the press and journalism shouldn’t be regulated.
But we have already seen the line between news and entertainment blur enough to destroy significant credibility. Continuing to do nothing as information flow changes will further erode it. Journalism organizations who choose to do nothing may soon find the line between professional and citizen journalism gone as well as the trust of their audiences.
The author blurb reads
David Hazinski, a former NBC correspondent, is an associate professor of telecommunications and head of broadcast news at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism.
As I read the piece, Professor Hazinski is calling for standards and regulation of “citizen journalists”, bloggers and Matt Drudge types. He admits that there is little or no such standards and regulation for those he calls journalists. But, we’re the real danger here.
Professor, I am insulted. When I look at the world of journalists, the men and women that you educate and graduate, I see little sign that ethics and standards are practiced.
Anonymous sources, misstatements of fact, misquoting, staging photographs, outright falsifying of documents, and lack of fact checking are rife in journalism today. I, and those like me, could hardly do worse. Indeed, we do better.
After the Indian Ocean tsunami a United Nations official accused America and Americans of being stingy. His comment was repeated widely in the media, and not challenged. It was left to me to produce the “Stingy List”, over a billion dollars in donations from American individuals, companies and charities that went to tsunami relief and reconstruction. Reuters interviewed me about this effort.
I just published an interview with Major Gamal Awad. AP and ABC’s 20/20 had done stories on this man, and gotten it wrong. Major Awad called me after I published to tell me that I got it right.
I’ve covered the men and women who have won medals for valor in the War on Terror. Keith Yoakum and Walter Jackson were both awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in November. Jackson got his November 2, Yoakum November 11. As of November 13, no media outlet had a story about Jackson and only three had stories about Yoakum. I had covered them both.
There are dozens of other stories that I’ve covered, that the old media ignored or reported incorrectly. Other bloggers discovered and reported on Dan Rather’s creative use of forged documents, Reuters’ staging photos in Beirut, AP’s repeated bogus reporting of incidents in Iraq, and The New Republic’s utter failure to fact check a series of stories. Let’s not forget the murders and rapes in the New Orleans Superdome that never happened. There’s lots more, frauds and mistakes by journalists, journalists that graduated from institutions like the one Professor Hazinski teaches at. Oh, yeah, Professor, that whole gay general YouTube thing. CNN set that up, not citizen journalists.
Maybe I don’t want to be tarred with the term “journalist”. It makes me feel dirty, and not the nice dirty either.
Table of contents for Citizen journalist
- Unfettered ‘citizen journalism’ too risky
- Don’t Call Me a Citizen Journalist!
- Wingnut or Citizen Journalist?
- Columbia Journalism Review Wrong About bloggers
Filed under: Commentary, Media, Old Media, Original writing · Tags: War on Terror
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Don’t you think that is is instructive that these people call themselves “journalists” and eschew the more factually-based term “reporter”?
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 12/14/2007 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
That SPJ Code of Ethics for journalists is an impressive example of self-congratulation. It’s just a summary of what we expect from any adult citizen, regardless of what he or she does for a living. You could easily go through the entire list and replace the word “journalist” with some other job title and, with some minor tweaking, it would make perfect sense. In fact, let’s do that right now with, say, “Auto mechanic”:
Be Accountable
Auto mechanics are accountable to their customers and each other.
Mechanics should:
Clarify and explain auto repair and invite dialogue with the public over the conduct of mechanics.
Encourage the public to voice grievances against auto repair shops.
Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.
Expose unethical practices of mechanics and repair shops.
Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.
In other words: Be accountable, honest, and fair with your customers. This is not a code of ethics for journalists; it’s just a summary of how not to be an sleazy, hypocritical jackass. These are rules for anyone who wants to be a part of civilized society, and they’re so fundamental that they shouldn’t even have to be spelled out. The fact that journalists have to do so, and to pretend that this list of basic civilized behaviors is a special Code of Ethics that elevates them above the rest of us, is a symptom of how amoral and disconnected from society they have become.
“Note: for television journalists, replace #1 above with the following:
1. Must be familiar with using make-up.”
Paul, I suspect that few TV journalists have to apply their own makeup — they have people who do that for them. As an amateur actor with a few community theatre productions under my belt, I probably know more about makeup (depiste being male) than most TV journalists.
[...] Chuck Simmins responds. Submit to Stumbled Upon! -Bill Quick Blogs that have linked to this [...]
He warns us that it’s just a matter of time before a ‘faked Rodney King
beating’ appears on the tube somewhere.
The original Rodney King beating was already faked, as it was run by the professional journalists who put it on the air. In order to bulldoze public opinion in the “correct” direction, much of the film was redacted – the part showing that Rodney King himself was not just an
innocent victim, but spent plenty of energy himself aggressively attacking
the policemen, and refusing to submit to their lawful orders.
When significant parts of a story are withheld from the public eye, that
denial of perspective is every bit as much faking as the creation of a
staged incident out of whole cloth. In the case of Rodney King, the citizen journalist who filmed the entire incident did no wrong – it was the ‘professionals’ who trimmed his raw material to fit their political agenda who basically lied to the public.
So, I wonder just who promoted Mr. David Hazinski to Dr. David Hazinski?
Was it the “Dr” himself, or the factchecker at the AJC?
[Editor: Be careful, there. We don't have any standards to apply to such a situation.]
So, under the good professor’s plan, what happens to “citizen journalists” who decline to be “certified?”
[Editor: Neutering, I suspect.]
It should be noted that both journalism and teaching are activities, not professions. They both are concerned more with how things are said than what is being said. They both have dedicated schools — of Journalism and Education. And while honorable activities in themselves — even laudable at an “amateur” level — both have an alarming proclivity towards totalitarianism when practiced by exclusive groups.
Journalism is a job, not a profession. I have extensive formal journalism training, and I can tell you that there is no particular skill to it that is particularly difficult or unobtainable by average people.
There is no “accountability” of journalists in any meaningful sense. There is no equivalent of a bar exam for journalists. There is no licensing procedure for journalists. There is no minimum education level required, nor any particular special kind of training at all. Fill out an employment application, get hired at minimum wage or better, and presto, you’re a journalist. Or just take a pad and pencil, call some folks on the phone and do some interviews, and you’re a journalist, too. Think not? Read on.
The myth of journalistic accountability:
There is a Code of Ethics promulgated by the Society of Professional Journalists that offers some admirable ideals. Here is 100 percent of what it says the accountability of journalists is (check for your self):
“Be Accountable
“Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.
“Journalists should:
“Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct.
“Encourage the public to voice grievances against the news media.
“Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.
“Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media.
“Abide by the same high standards to which they hold others.
That’s all. Personally, I’d say that the mainline media rate no better than a D- on all scores. What the code means is that accountability is nothing but an agreement by journalists, whatever they actually are, to follow these rules. There is no sanction for not doing so. I presume that the SPJ could revoke your membership in it for failing to follow the code, but you can still be a journalist if you want. Lawyers can be debarred, physicians can be de-licensed, and then neither can practice, but no such sanctions of any kind exist for journalists.
Nor should they. The only good answer to free speech with which you don’t agree is more free speech. The First Amendment does not privilege “reporters.” The First Amendment protects equally everyone’s right to publish. News media outlets have no First Amendment rights that you and I or Joe Doaks does not have, nor do they have those rights more urgently.
I wrote a lot more about this back in 2003, from which the above is a short excerpt. See here.
My late father (1916-2002) was a newspaperman, a good 1 who rose to the top of his profession. He had disdain for “journalism” & “journalism schools.” In the old days before somebody thought up “journalism,” he said, newspapermen just wanted to get all the facts right, spell all the names correctly, & write sentences with subjects & verbs that are in grammatic agreement. He said Watergate changed all that. Ever since Watergate, he said, newspaper people no longer aspire to see their by-lines in their hometown papers. “Now they all want to come to Washington DC & be Woodward & Lothrop.”
“Woodward & Lothrop” was Dad’s little joke. The famous Washington Post “Watergate” reporters were Woodward & Bernstein. Back in those days, Woodward & Lothrop was an upscale department store in Washington DC.
Dad’s point — & I think he was on to something — is that when people say they want to become journalists so they can “make a difference,” what that means is that they have an agenda they intend to advance, rather than just getting all the facts right, spelling all the names correctly, & writing sentences with subjects & verbs that are in grammatic agreement, as in the old days.
Nothing stays the same. Often when things change, something is lost while something is gained. So it goes.
– Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.