Citizen Journalism's Questionable Potential

Is the power of the Internet strong enough to change journalism?
Erin Rosa published a piece for the Columbia Journalism Review on November 19th titled “New Media, New Opportunities.” Her piece discusses the decline of print and the rise of the web in the sense that it is providing access for a wider array of those who strive to be journalists. She claims that “journalism is becoming a more egalitarian profession,” citing the example of “an unemployed nineteen-year-old using free blogging software [who] can report on the results of a controversial city council vote restructuring Denver’s election bureau and scoop a weathered professional before he even makes it back to the newsroom.” Praising the advent of online reader comments, Rosa concludes that “this new kind of journalism, based on old-fashioned reporting but propelled by public participation and rooted in the inclusive nature of the Web, will continue to thrive as newsmakers begin to see information as less of a commodity and more of a continuing dialog with their audiences.” Her analysis of this new form as presenting new opportunities to journalists is valid, but I think she’s getting a bit confused along the way. She’s presuming that unaffiliated bloggers with no credentials can attain the same level of access as journalists who work for big name news organizations due to the equalization provided by the Web. While citizen journalism is often decried in journalism classes, that doesn’t mean it fully discounts its potential successes and effects. I do feel that Rosa is making a leap to her conclusion that isn’t supported by logic or factual evidence. She’s forgetting her own experience that made it possible for her to get to the place she is today. The Web hasn’t completely changed things yet, or has it?

Personalities of the Press

Rachel Maddow is a patriot - photo by Paul Shoul

Nearly every self-aware journalist can toss around the joke that while "two is a coincidence, three is a trend" and therefore may warrant a story. Instead of tackling a specific news item on the blog this week, I'll grapple with the celebrity profiles of our newspeople.

Rachel Maddow is a media darling lately, scoring write-ups left and right (but mostly left), including this New York piece, which really seems to highlight her personal wit, hard work and intellectual nature.

Now Maddow, of course, is the newly appointed queen of the punditocracy -- and if O'Reilly is king, maybe that makes Matthews Hamlet? -- but Katie Couric has garnered substantial interest since she took control of the CBS desk, including this generally favorable report by the Times media columnist David Carr. Couric's predecessor, of course, Dan Rather has been a celebrity fixture, especially in his decline.

Do we need to "know" those who give us the news? Edward Murrow was doubtlessly a "celebrity," but how much of that was fed the public by his media contemporaries and how much of it was our own projection? We grow to trust these people, we hope they're just like us. But I'll go out on a limb and say that we had no idea what the inside of Murrow's apartment looked like or how he and his lover spent their nights like we do about, say, Maddow.

And how does the effect vary between pundit and news anchor? Surely Papa Bear O'Reilly is paid to be a character. Larger than life. A celebrity. But I'm tempted to say that the difference is slim to none, with 34% of Americans watching cable news on a daily basis -- 2.4 million the Factor, alone -- according to a Pew report from 2006. People are getting their news from the Olbermanns, Maddows and Hannitys of the world.

So, give me their background, sure; their upbringing and education are likely predominant factors in shaping in their worldview. I just don't think I need to know their favorite LES dive bar, too.

That Dan Rather lawsuit is still going on...?

(Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, courtesy of the NY Times website.)

The answer to the question is 'yes' apparently. After filing a lawsuit against CBS News, his old long-time employer, last year, Dan Rather is still aggressively pursuing the case, attempting to get CBS News to release as much information as possible while still in discovery.

Though, 5/7 of Rather's charges have been dismissed, two remain. And Rather has fought tirelessly for the rest of his case to be heard. In fact, he's used over 2 million dollars of his personal fortune to pay for the trial. What keeps him going on?

Rather says, "I want to go the distance...Like any good reporter, I want to get as many as facts as possible; I want to get to the bottom of the story.”

Just yesterday, more of the story has come to light. Apparently at odds over some in the media and government's stances, as well as even his own at the point where he apologized for Memogate, a new report released says that there was actually GOP involvement, not liberal bias. Rather has claimed that CBS feared backlash from the Right and that's why they shut the story down so quickly and eventually forced him out of the anchor's seat. He also has said that CBS looked to stack its panel with a far-right voice like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh or Matt Drudge.

Heck, the old president of CBS News, Andrew Heyward, has even acknowledged (under oath) that the News Department was scared of the right's reaction to what it put out: “CBS News, fairly or unfairly, had a reputation for liberal bias,” and “the harshest scrutiny was obviously going to come from the right.”

So, it looks like Dan Rather's 2 million dollars won't be spent in vain. His trial is forthcoming at the beginning of next year and his somewhat tarnished reputation may still yet be saved. But what do we think about the GOP potentially limiting the discourse on George Bush's service and the network itself being fearful of retribution by the party? It's not good for the us that's for sure.

Greta and Sarah: BFFs

(Photo from Fox News Channel)

Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren had beef with this portion Howard Kurtz’s Nov. 13th column for The Washington Post about her latest interview with Sarah Palin.

[Balitomore Sun TV Critic David] Zurawik calls the Van Susteren interview "beyond friendly," saying: "Greta Van Susteren is totally sympathetic to her and makes no secret about it."

In the blog post (which was removed shortly after it was posted, here is a screenshot), Greta complains that Kurtz didn’t give her the opportunity to defend herself against Zurakwik’s criticism, even though Kurtz had called her about another topic the day before. Fox News’ mantra “fair and balanced” must be going to her head. Kurtz is under no obligation to provide all sides of every single assertion in a column and should feel free to quote a prominent TV critic without the journalists reference complaining. 

If his column had been specifically about Fox News’ treatment of Palin, then she would have had a point. Kurtz doesn’t give her a chance to respond to 64 words at the tail end of a 1,000 word piece and Greta feels betrayed!? That’s ridiculous. It’s no surprise she took the blog post down, realizing she’d made a mountain out of a molehill.

Zurawik’s characterization of Van Susteren’s interviews as sympathetic is self evident to anyone who has seen any of them. In her latest interview, Van Susteren spent the first half of the interview letting Palin address rumors about her $150,000 wardrobe and whether or not she insisted Africa was a country. The interview is so pedestrian and accommodating in these ten minutes that Palin herself looked bored. In Susteren’s previous interview with Palin shortly after her nomination, she played to Palin’s strong suit asking her about sports and Title IX, hardly relevant for someone who’s a heartbeat away from the presidency.

In the rest of her blog post Susteren goes on to defend her treatment of Palin, insisting that “you can get a lot of information out of guests by being polite” and that sympathetic does not equal ineffective. But it does equal useless.

When she’s asked general and open ended questions, Palin never has to venture far from her comfort zone. Anyone can speak generally about anything. Palin needs to be driven off her talking points so she can prove to American that she actually understands the issues and has the ability to think critically about them before there’s any talk of 2012.

Greta Van Susteren’s interviews are like meet and greets when they should be obstacle courses.

An Update from the Martha Stewart Blog

Photo courtesy of Dean Perry and Tattyworld.net


For at least one day, I was able to post a note to Martha Stewart regarding her misrepresentation of Halloween under "Halloween at My House," created on October 28, 2008.


Here's what I wrote:

Dear Martha,

How could you allow Michael Boodro to make such self-gratifying remarks in October's Editor's Letter? He wrote of your enterprise as being "no small part responsible for Halloween becoming an international phenomenon." I'd like to know why he thinks so. Mr. Boodro also heralds the letter with "HALLOWEEN has gone global," and please correct me if I'm mistaken, but that's not news. Halloween didn't begin in America as he suggests; it has European origins deeply rooted in Gaelic culture. Also, this holiday should hardley be considered "global" since predominantly western cultures celebrate it. Boodro only names the U.S. the U.K. and France as participants.

Also, in 2006, I read that this holiday has all but died in France because of anti-American sentiments. Boodro's remark seems to ignore this since his core descriptions relate his past Halloweens in France.

This editor's note reminds me that your magazine is all about being a business. Like Boodro's letter, your inclusion of comments from the public are always positive, hardley critical. I am offended that MSL only publishes "how-to" questions, as if your audience doesn't posses enough analytical skills to pick apart the cultural agenda set by Martha Inc.

Many thanks for your attention,

Audrey K. Tran





I checked the blog just yesterday and couldn't find my post.

Fake expert leaves reporters feeling shameful and looking biased.

Photo of phony McCain adviser Martin Eisenstadt.
Courtesy of Eisenstadtgroup.com


As the post-election hype rolls on, the Palin-coverage took a twisted turn, which left viewers scratching their heads.

According to NYT, a pair of filmmakers pulled an elaborate Internet hoax by impersonating a McCain adviser.

When Fox News reported that an unnamed McCain adviser said Palin did not know that Africa was a continent, no one thought to ask the defendant whether or not the fact was true. Instead, the anonymous source's Palin/Africa story spread like rapid fire. Well, because, on top of her infinite foreign policy widsom, it was another Palin-fumble, right? Soon after, MSNBC anchor David Shuster reported Monday that it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who leaked the claims.

The only problem is, Eisenstadt is a made-up character.

Dan Mirvish and Eitan Gorlin admitted to creating created Eisenstadt and convincing blogs to pitch a TV show based on the character.

Shamefully, MSNBC reported a retraction, saying, "Eisenstadt should not have made air." But also, they claimed, "someone in the newsroom received the Palin item in an e-mail message from a colleague and assumed it had been checked out."

Had exposing everything negative about Palin become so routine that no one remembered to fact check their sources? You would think after the Stephen Glass fiasco, reporters would be more careful...


But while right-wing supporters pointed the finger at a liberal-biased media who was too "anxious to report any negative reports on Sarah Palin without first confirming the information (Michael Calderone's Politico blog), Howard Rosenberg argues otherwise in his article.

With the 24-hour news cycle they (today’s media) rush into anything they can find,” Mirvish told The New York Times. (NoTimetoThink.com)

Rather than accuse MSNBC for possessing a liberal slant, Rosenberg says, "it was rushed on the air because MNBC–as do so many in the media these days–was moving Too Fast to Think."

But my problem , however, is how easily we were dooped by bloggers, who got an even bigger voice through careless news broadcasters. Should we consider Gorlin and Morvish abusers of the Internet for its impacts and benefits of an open forum? Or have they just opened the media's eyes (big media, like Fox News and MSNBC, for that matter) to rely less on the Internet for sources and more on reporting, next time?

Tranquilitymongering

Hiroshima, 1945: Sometimes it's what's no longer there that is the most striking.

(Courtesy of International Center of Photography)

Imagine taking the dog out for a walk and returning with a suitcase containing a (mostly) unseen history in your hand? According to Adam Harrison Levy's article in DesignObserver, that's exactly what happened to Don Levy, a Watertown, MA man.

Levy found a suitcase full of black-and-white photographs telling the story of a devastated and destroyed post-atom bomb Hiroshima--a story many have heard, but few have fully seen.

"On september 18, 1945, just over a month after Japan had surrendered, the U.S. Government imposed a strict code of censorship on the newly defeated nation. It read in part: 'nothing shall be printed which might, directly or by inference, disturb public tranquility.'"

Keeping the images out of sight kept grief and anger directed at the U.S. and it's new weapon at bay. But Levy thinks that "this suppression of visual evidence served a third purpose: it helped, both in Japan and back home in America, to inhibit any questioning of the decision to use the bomb in the first place." Are visuals more jarring to emotional memory? And if so, can the censorship (or perhaps careful placement of) of choice visuals redirect the collective memory?

The first page of a Google Image search for "Hiroshima 1945" provides twenty pictures. Of the twenty photos, more than a third are of the foreign and brilliant mushroom cloud, while many of the remaining are far off aerial shots.

A similar search of "iraq war" leads to twelve photos of heroic soldiers and two of protestors. All but one of the twenty images regard Americans. When I repeated the search with the "News Content" filter on, I got nary a image of casualty American, Iraqi or anything else.

Sure, these aren't the only images the American public has witnessed of either event, nor are they the only one's left accessible. But if page hits mean anything, these seem to be the ones the linger closest in the collective memory.

With the Defense secretary warning of an aging U.S. nuclear arsenal and nuclear war looming (or, you know, not...), I do find myself hoping for tranquility. But shouldn't this peace of mind stem from a full understanding, rather than a carefully constructed and deceitful image? It's easier to traverse a landscape you know well, then one you simply think you know, so shouldn't we be given all the pictures and then we can decide what's right?