Emergence of Citizen Journalism in the US and Bill Moyers

[marco2]

From: nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net
[mailto:nettime-l-request@bbs.thing.net] On Behalf Of Ronda Hauben
Sent: May 9, 2007 6:35 AM
To: Nettime-l
Subject: <nettime> Emergence of Citizen Journalism in the US and Bill
Moyers

An article from OhmyNews International that I thought folks on Nettime
would find of interest.

Bill Moyers and the Emergence of U.S. Citizen Journalism Power of
government creates need for investigative news by Ronda Hauben

Bill Moyers is a highly respected professional journalist, an American
journalist who stands out as one who is willing to speak truth to power,
even at the risk of losing his job. Moyers has been a journalist since
he was 15 years old, and yet he considers himself a citizen journalist.
After an absence of more than two years, Moyers returned to PBS (public
broadcasting system) on Friday, April 27 with the return of his show the
"Bill Moyers Journal." (1)

This initial Friday night program provides a helpful framework to use in
looking at the nature of citizen journalism and considering what are the
essential factors needed for citizen journalism to develop in the U.S.

Often citizen journalism has been referred to as a journalism of
"amateurs" as opposed to "professionals," as two prominent Columbia
Journalism School professionals Samuel Freedman (2) and Nicholas Leeman
(3) have argued, or as a journalism of those "who lack training as
journalists" in contrast to those who are "trained journalists," as a
recent article in LinuxInsider proposes. (4)

The origin and development of citizen journalism presents the basis for
a very different model, however. The basis is for a collaboration of
journalists as a Fourth Estate, and of citizens who are concerned with
overseeing what government does so as to monitor the use and abuse of
power.

The concept of citizen journalism was first popularized by the Korean
online newspaper OhmyNews. When OhmyNews was started in February 2000,
it was with the goal of transforming the conservative domination of the
media landscape in South Korea. Oh Yeon-ho, the founder and CEO of
OhmyNews, had worked as a journalist for the progressive publication
"Mal" for the previous decade. His experience taught him that even when
he wrote a significant story, it received little attention. When one of
the conservative newspapers in South Korea covered a comparable story,
however, other conservative news media provided coverage, so the story
received serious attention. In starting OhmyNews, Oh was determined to
bring about a change in the media environment in South Korea so that
"'the quality of news determined whether it won or lost,' not the power
and prestige of the media organization that printed the article." (5)

The creation of OhmyNews originally took the form of a media
organization with a small staff of reporters and editors who focused on
covering a carefully chosen but limited set of stories. With the concept
"every citizen is a reporter," however, readers were invited to submit
articles, many of which were included as part of the OhmyNews
publication. The writers whose articles appeared in OhmyNews were paid a
small fee. Since then OhmyNews has grown substantially. The question is
raised whether there is any similar development growing up in the U.S.
In order to answer the question, it is important to determine the
necessary characteristics for a media to be called "citizen journalism."

On the first regular episode of the Bill Moyers Journal, Moyers invited
Jon Stewart and Josh Marshall as his guests. Stewart insists he isn't a
journalist though Moyers differs. Stewart's program "The Daily Show"
which appears on cable television, is considered by many of his devoted
fans to be closer to what is "news" than the majority of programs which
call themselves news or news media. Stewart, however, describes his show
as close to "an editorial cartoon."

On his initial Friday evening show, Moyers played some clips from a
recent Daily Show. One clip was an extract from the testimony presented
to the U.S. congress by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The clip
showed Gonzales claiming "I can't recall" in many different instances in
response to nearly all the questions he was asked by the congress.
Stewart comments that at first he didn't understand what the
significance was of Gonzales' response. Eventually, however, he began to
think he had figured out what it represented. Describing the motives of
those in the Bush administration, he says: (6)

"They would rather us believe them to be wildly incompetent and
inarticulate than to let us know anything about how they operate. And
so, they do constitutionally-mandated things most of the time, but they
don't -- they fulfill the letter of their obligation to checks and
balances, but not the intent."

Stewart is commenting on why Gonzales' testimony on April 19, 2007 to
the U.S. congress did not explain anything about how the decision had
been made in the situation that was the subject of the hearing. Eight
U.S. attorneys appointed by the justice department which Gonzales heads
were fired. These attorneys were from different regions of the U.S. and
so at first the pattern of justice department activity was not obvious
to congress which is charged with overseeing the activity of the justice
department.

Stewart comments that Gonzales was willing "to look like a pinhead"
rather than provide the needed information for congress to carry out its
oversight functions over the justice department. Elaborating on the
importance of such oversight functions, Stewart explains (7):

"The election moment is merely the American public saying, 'We'd rather
you be president than that guy.' That's it. The next four years, though,
you still have to abide by the oversight process that is there to
prevent this kind of bizarre sort of cult-like atmosphere that falls
along. I mean, I accept that kind of veil of secrecy around Tom Cruise
and Katie Holmes, but I don't accept that around our government."

Another guest on Bill Moyer's show was Joshua Micah Marshall, the head
of TPM Media, an online media company which is located in the flower
district of New York City. TPM Media employs several full time reporter
bloggers who work with Marshall. It publishes TalkingPointsMemo.com and
TPMmuckraker.com The description of TPMmuckraker explains that
"TPMmuckraker.com is a news blog dedicated to chronicling, explaining
and reporting on public corruption, political scandal and abuses of the
public trust of all sorts." A more elaborate description on the Web site
says (:

"As the site's name implies, it is inspired by the early 20th century
tradition of journalistic muckraking and built on the technologies of
the early 21st. Our aim is to produce journalism that is pugnacious,
lively, independent, meticulously factual and fun."

The mechanism of funding is listed as "paid advertising and
contributions from readers."

TCMmuckraker.com first broke the story of the firing of the eight U.S.
attorneys by the justice department. The U.S. congress is currently
investigating the circumstances of these activities. Several of the
attorneys who were fired were conducting criminal investigations of
government officials in which the Republican Party took an interest.

Marshall's publication successfully utilized the Internet to piece
together the activities within the department of justice, which were not
obvious to outsiders.

In December 2006, Marshall posted a link about the firing of a U.S.
attorney in Arkansas from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. An article in
The Los Angeles Times explains what happened: (9)

"Marshall later followed up, adding that several U.S. attorneys were
apparently being replaced and asked his 100,000 or so daily readers to
write in if they knew anything about U.S. attorneys being fired in their
areas. For the two months that followed, Talking Points Memo and one of
its sister sites, TPM Muckraker, accumulated evidence from around the
country on who the axed prosecutors were, and why politics might be
behind the firings. The cause was taken up among Democrats, Atty. Gen.
Alberto R. Gonzales is now in the media crosshairs."

The participation of readers in making it possible for the details of
the maneuvers of the justice department to be uncovered is a
demonstration of the power of citizen participation in a developing news
story, a power that the Internet makes possible.

Commenting on the potential demonstrated by such exposures, one reader
writes:(10)

"I think that the Internet has/is doing to journalism what it has done
to nearly everything else it touches. It 'communitizes' it. That means
the break down between the roles of the journalist and the reader as
each starts to take on responsibilities of the other."

The ability of the reader to participate in the development of an
important story either as a journalist, by discussing the issues
involved, or by providing tips to the journalist writing the story, are
all important contributions. Similarly, the ability of the journalist,
whether trained as a journalist or not, to take up the stories that need
to be covered in order to monitor the activities of government, to give
such stories the proper attention and to work with other citizens to
develop and to spread the stories so that they get adequate coverage and
attention, are all important contributions to what I am proposing are
essential aspects of citizen journalism.

As a top notch professional journalist who is also a citizen journalist
Moyers offers his critique of the failure of much of what presents
itself as journalism in America. Though there is, he explains, "some
world-class journalism being done in our country by journalists
committed to getting as close as possible to the verifiable truth," this
is not, Moyers proposes, the dominant character of the U.S. media. "The
news business is at war with journalism," says Moyers. Private interests
of unaccountable executives and investors have come to dominate how
Americans get their news, he maintains. Yet Moyers is optimistic. "What
encourages me is the Internet," he explains. (11)

As the exposure of the firing of the U.S. attorneys scandal continues to
evolve in the U.S., it is likely to take a collaborative effort of
readers and journalists continuing with the investigation and
publication of the details of the story to put pressure on the U.S.
Congress to continue its investigation. This is an activity for citizens
doing the work of journalists, and the work of journalists acting as
citizens. Such a development marks the emergence in the U.S. of a form
of journalism which is independent of the political and commercial
interests, a journalism that is critical of what those in power are
doing.

Given the unbridled power of government officials in the U.S. there is
particularly a need for a journalism which will report the news and
expose the underlying but hidden motives and interests behind the news.
Too often journalists tell the story that those in power want to be
told. Too often these journalists act as if they are the public
relations department for the powerful. Rarely do journalists in the U.S.
tell the news from the point of view of those who are the victims of the
abuse of power by those in public office.

Commenting on the important role for such a new media that is not
corporate dominated and owned, but that is able to fufill the role of
citizen journalism, Linda Milazzo writes, "New Media voices ... won't
permit another president to disregard the will of the people as the "Old
Press" wantonly do, a new press will have free unencumbered voices, much
of which arise from the Internet."(12)

Writing in 1994, Michael Hauben, co-author of the book Netizens: On the
History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet proposed that the Net
brings the power of the reporter to the netizen, to the user of the
net.(13) The collaboration of the citizen and the journalist to create a
socially responsible but powerful form of journalism that will be
capable of monitoring government activities may just now be emerging in
the U.S.



Notes:

(1) Bill Moyers Journal, April 27, 2007
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/transcript4.html

(2) Citizen Journalists and the New 'News.' A response to Samuel
Freedman's column on CBS TV's 'Public Eye'
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=
283357&rel_no=1

(3)"Cit-J and its Place in Journalism." A reply to Nicholas Lemann's New

Yorker article
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=
312691&rel_no=1

(4) Katherine Noyes, "Journalism 2.0: Power to the People,
Linux Insider" http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/must-read/57193.html

(5)Ronda Hauben, "OhmyNews and 21st Century Journalism," OhmyNews,
September 9, 2005
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=
246787&rel_no=1

(6) Bill Moyers talks with Jon Stewart, April 27, 2007
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/transcript1.html

(7) Bill Moyers talks with Jon Stewart, April 27, 2007
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/transcript1.html

(8)The urls are: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.org and
http://tpmmuckraker.com

(9) Terry McDermott, "Blogs can top the presses: Talking Points Memo
drove
the U.S. attorrneys story, proof that Web writers with input from
devoted
readers can reshape journalism," Los Angeles Times, March 17, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-blogs17mar17,0,2952
916.story?coll=la-home-headlines

(10) Posted by: Alex (D - No) | April 30, 2007 01:36 AM The Moyers Blog
"Open Source Journalism"
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/04/opensource_journalism_1.h
tml

(11)Interview with Bill Moyers "on journalism and democracy," The
Christian Century, April 17, 2007
http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=3196

(12)NEW MEDIA: THIS AIN'T YOUR CORPORATE MEDIA ANYMORE!
May 5, 2007 at 19:15:11 Opednews.com
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_linda_mi_070505_new_media_3a_thi
s_ain_.htm

(13) Michael Hauben, "The Net and the Netizens," in Netizens: On the
History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x01


http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=&no=360069
&rel_no=1&back_url




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