Beware mob mediaFor all its good intents, citizen journalism is a form of fascism waiting to happenDuring the past couple of years, there has been a great deal of talk about citizen journalism. It started with the idea that bloggers and others could provide worthwhile information that would add to a topic under discussion or to a news event.
The Dan Rather case comes to mind. In that case, it was a blogger who said the letter Rather was using to base his story on President Bush trying to avoid active duty during the Vietnam War was a fake.
Ever since then, the theory has been proposed that ordinary citizens may have something to add to news as it is regularly covered by professional journalists. Not to mention the fact that for-profit Web sites that adopt the concept get an awful lot of free content. Why care who creates your content as long as you get your page views, right?
I am not a cynic and a skeptic because I am a journalist. I admit those attributes came first and are the reason I probably was attracted to journalism. The chance to say the emperor has no clothes is my hot button.
So with that in mind, let me offer a very cynical point of view: Citizen journalism is a form of fascism waiting to happen.
Now I know fascism requires the centralization of power, and that would appear to be the opposite of citizen journalism. But think of dark historic times such as the Salem witch trials or Hitler's rise to power.
They both started with the rantings of individuals, but somehow those individuals became "thought leaders," and around them coalesced a central organization made up of like-minded individuals.
I'm saying citizen journalism, where nonprofessionals report on and write the news, will devolve over time. Citizen journalism will become a platform for so-called thought leaders to vent their biased, possibly hateful opinions. If you go to a racist Web site, of which there are plenty, you know what to expect. But when you go to a site or read a blog that wears the mantle of citizen journalism, it is another story.
If you don't think things can get turned around in a not-so-good way, let me remind you of the one tool many dictators use to perpetuate authoritarian rule: the referendum. What could be more fair? Everyone votes, and yet it turns out to be the scariest tactic of all.
So we come to the Topix Web site. The perfect example of citizen journalism in action. Topix is a local news aggregator, started with the best of intentions by Rich Skrenta, co-founder and CEO.
Skrenta decided what was missing from news sites such as CNN and Google News was local news. Although Topix gets news feeds from hundreds of local daily papers, news radio, and television stations, Topix was striking out, according to Skrenta. They just weren't getting enough local news to keep the pages fresh, and without that they weren't getting enough local interest -- i.e., not enough local clicks.
Then a local event, two tornadoes in Caruthers, Mo., changed everything. Skrenta opened up Topix to everyone so that residents could communicate with one another. "Is my grandma's house still standing on Cherry Street?" someone might write, and sure enough, grandma's neighbor might write back, "Yes, she's okay."
Now Topix gets 50,000 posts per day nationwide, more than 10 million page views per month.
Sounds good. For the moment.
But if you've ever lived in a small community or belonged to an affinity group online, you know how things go. I belonged to an online group for Harley-Davidson Sportster riders, and even that went south. From discussing bike mechanics and good rides, it devolved into politics and where you stand on Iraq with lots of name-calling to boot. Let's face it, besides the good things about living in a small community, there are also the busybodies, the ones who think they are the community watchdogs and censors. They don't see or understand the value of impartiality or the benefit of standing on the outside and looking in. Is that who you want to get your information from?
I guarantee at some point some local citizen journalist will ask why Mr. Jones down the street doesn't put out a flag on July 4th. What's wrong with him anyway? Or why does that guy with the funny accent never say hello to me? What's he hiding?
Journalists remain a voice of reason and a moderating voice. But now we seem to value "thought leaders," so-called experts who have their own agenda. They claim to know more and are willing to steer the discussion in the direction they choose.
If we start turning to them to find out what our neighbors are hiding or why they aren't saluting the flag, we are going to be in lots of trouble.
To my ears, "citizen journalists" and "thought leaders" sound like words straight out of a George Orwell novel. Maybe I'm wrong. But as more and more people stop reading newspapers and depend on online community sites to get their information, I see the danger and it may just be too late.
Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on April 23, 2007 03:00 AM I read through the comments also, and was struck by this one:Another very real danger, one that is already occurring, I am afraid, is that fewer people, especially the younger, technically-oriented ones, are getting factual hard news, but are merely getting most of there 'infromation' and views on both world and local events by merely reading what other people are saying about them, second-hand, at best, and biased and poorly researched most likely-
Posted by: william northup at April 23, 2007 11:03 AM
http://weblog.infoworld.com/realitycheck/archives/2007/04/beware_mob_medi.html
