An interesting column by the BBC’s Bill Thompson but one which makes me wonder how the conversation got so skewed away from what really is to what is claimed to be. Thompson talks about what a journalism student today is to do given new media:
Unfortunately for those already working as journalists, many readers and viewers seem to feel the same way about the need for professional journalists. The rapid growth of citizen journalism seems less a sign of the emergence of a vibrant new area of online newsgathering and reporting than a symptom of the decline of existing forms of news journalism. It points to a career-threatening loss of trust in what people see on their TV screens or read in the daily papers as they become what citizen journalist advocate Dan Gillmor calls ‘the former audience’. This could be seen as a counsel of despair, but I do not think we should give up hope yet. If we are willing to look closely at what the internet is doing to the practice of journalism then we could do a lot to regain this trust and re-establish a connection with readers and viewers.
My problem, of course, is I have no evidence of there being anything called “citizen journalism.” We have the three news stories that have been affected by popular bloggism: Rather was fired, Howard Dean screamed and someone added 25% more smoke to a picture of a fire in Lebanon. Sure, we have cut and paste cranks of all sorts like me but that is only the new iWaterCooler and nothing more. The closest thing we have to a citizen journalist in Canada is Stephen Taylor’s excellent work at his blog but that, if we are honest, is just a branch of a political party however effective he is – hardly either “citizen” or “journalist.” Other than that? Zippo.
So where did this new era go? If we measure new by new things adding newness, what got gained? We have been happily distracted and convinced of something not well pinpointed. The entertainment value of self-publication and the putative accompanying glam has led ourselves to a more complex but more confused place where substantive analysis let alone criticism is oddly seen as being something only a traitor to the medium would engage in. Trouble is rumours now have it blogs will peak in 2007 which means they peaked in late 2005. Seeing as podcasting, YouTube and MySpace have also run their course by either commercializing, censoring or just looking too damn nerdy, the track record of the digital as dud is starting to show.
Given all that, what would I do if I were a journalism student? Start a newspaper or a radio station or maybe get that masters degree. The next thing is coming and you can’t afford to be be bothered with this old tech, lo-fi anyone-can-do-it stuff. I, for my part, am thrilled to perhaps have access to a summer of 2007 plot where I may be able to get 1000 onions and 50 lbs of storage seed potatoes in the ground.