I am at the Media Giraffe conference in Amherst MA this week, and having an interesting time among all these bloggers and traditional journalist types.
I even got to meet Helen Thomas, one of my heros! (But who, alas, totally doesn't get citizen media...)
At any rate, often I pick an icebreaker question for a conference like this, and collect the answers. And my question for this conference is:
Among young journalists, how do you see their literacy in history, foreign affairs, and economics?
The answers have been truly disturbing. Almost universally I hear that journalism is a technique, not an interdisciplinary study, for young journalists. Many are coming into the field with English or Communications Studies backgrounds, and nearly no literacy in the content or context of the news they are reporting.
In addition, I feel a rift between "mainstream media" and "bloggers," "old-" and "new media," here that is very irksome. I am pretty rigorous in my blogging. I check facts. I talk to primary sources. I correlate multiple media sources, and often contrast them in critical ways. Yet for some people here, the label "blogger" is spoken with a kind of offhand contempt, as though one were talking about people doing brain surgery without benefit of a medical education.
With a depth literacy of history, politics, foreign affairs, and economics which outstrips many of the "real" journalists, why should I be treated without respect?
Bloggers are part of the stewardship of democracy, even if we are not part of the Priesthood of Truth that the journalists position themselves as.
I teach media criticism to 6-12th graders. Most of these young folks run in terror if someone claims to be delivering Truth. Perhaps the old media needs to realize that their robes of office are precisely what makes them seem like shams and charletans to engaged youth.
Please, give us the facts and some value of context, but do not tell us it's Truth!
There is a place for traditional media -- I don't want to go to Iraq to observe what goes on there. I don't have time to be everywhere at once, and I really do value the journalism that comes from our best media. But even then, I "trust but verify." I never take a strong opinion on a news story without finding information on it from several sources.
I realized this morning, I can't remember the last time I went to the front page of an online newspaper. I am always going there from a bookmark site, or from Google News, or from someone's email or another blog post. I read a fraction of a dozen newspapers a day -- from all over the world, and all on line.
The world is changing, and the people here are rightly struggling with new models and ways of thinking. But too many of the models start with the money model, rather than what the reason is for the content of the news. Democracy and a free society are ensured by a free press.
Do we have one?
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Comments: 2
I go to the front page of a newspaper every day via Boston.com. I'm one of the few GenX-ers that does this, believe me. Everyone else I know uses Google News or just the Google headlines on their custom homepage. Others just rely on Slashdot headlines (fun, and educational, but not hardcore 'news').
I'm fortunate enough to have studied Communications for my BA. I'd love to go on and learn more but I can't do Emerson or BU at this stage in my life, so I'm just getting the plain boring MBA.
I love the whole culture shift that media undergoes every few years. My neighbor was reading her new cell phone manual (that does TV) when we spoke (thru our car windows) just yesterday. My husband hacked his phone so it does all of the Microsoft programs, so now when he travels there's no need for a device any larger than a credit card. *sigh*
I remember when I was the first person in my dorm with an Internet connection (dial-up in 1996). Most kids were lucky enough to have a word processor. Never mind the Internet. It was $14/month so I could swing it.
I was lucky to go to college and study Comm in the days before cellphones were mainstream. Then again my first one was $11/month with a corporate discount, and I'm getting the same damn service now for nearly $60. *shrug*
I think Journalists of today have gotten lazy. We all know the newspaper is written to be read at the 8th grade level. Why is this? Those of us that still read it sure are above 8th grade reading level (okay, maybe not)