Response Week 8

The future of journalism no longer seems so bleak.  The fears of true journalism falling to the side are unfounded.  We talk about commenting and blogging, Twitter and hyperlocal news as the downfall of professional journalism.  But the speculation misses the mark.  New developments and conventions surrounding online journalism do not necessarily detract from professional journalism, rather they add to it.  User comments on published works of journalism, whether inane back and forth, valuable questions and concerns or useful additional information only strengthens the original article.  Without the original article, the public conversation would never occur.  The user comments, the prominent placement and publication of a user’s comment adding valuable information to a story would not be possible without the original article originating from a professional journalist.  This is metajournalism.  It’s the weird in between, grey area, existing between professional journalism and citizen journalism.  Its value is hit or miss.  Sometimes insightful comments and facts, sometimes childish back and forth.

Speculating about the future.  Everyone will have some form of publication.  Everyone’s “daily life footprint” will be viewable online.  Either through direct posting, like today’s blogs or indirectly through status updates on Twitter and Facebook.  What people encounter, see, do, hear about will only be increasingly broadcast online in the future.  This being the case, citizen journalism is only going to explode in the future.  If anything, professional journalism will be more valuable in the future as users struggle to sort through the sea of information.

Like many of the fears about the future of media, once the transition is closer to complete, once the dust has settled, once new conventions are established, old practices can find their new value.  Trending on Twitter may become the future counterpart to the AP news feed.  Professional journalists will still be necessary to make sense of, simplify and relate the fragmented stories of our societies.

Metajournalism will shape what journalists report and maybe even how they report it.  But the one user with a single first hand account of an event, the one user with a valid question cannot stand on his own.  The professional journalist can.  But the professional journalist, through message interactivity can tailor his articles, his message more to the users reading his work.  Metajournalism is not the death of professional journalism, if anything it bolsters professional journalism.

Citizen journalism is more independent from professional journalism than metajournalism.  It can be and is often perceived as the alternative to professional journalism.  In a period of transition, two opposing sides have everything to loose.  The fight isn’t pretty.  Professional journalism, as a commodity, (as it always has been and will be) is reliable, insightful information; both reporting and opinion.  Citizens of a society always have a necessity for reliable, accurate information.  True citizen journalism, by definition, is the layman acting as journalist.  It inherently isn’t always reliable.  It can be, but for it to be citizen journalism it has to be fast and loose.  Once it becomes edited, fact checked, vetted, etc. it becomes professional.

Citizen journalism is a user seeing a status update that a student was hit by a vehicle, a status update that police are breaking up a protest.  It can be as simple as one sentence or a link to a five page blog post.  Yes, it informs the user but a smart user understands the necessity of professional journalism to report that event.  In this moment in time there probably are users who don’t understand this necessity; users who believe what they read of citizen journalism is true journalism.  But it’s logical to assume that in the future, as users have more experience online and become more “online worldly,” they will understand that what they are reading within the realm of citizen journalism isn’t always reliable.

What clouds the discussion of professional journalism versus citizen journalism is free journalism.  Citizen journalism is, top to bottom, 100% free.  Professional journalism has operational costs.  Professional journalists have to be paid, it is a service.  It is now the task of professional journalism, in the face of citizen journalism, to find ways to offload the price of of professional journalism.  The burden of payment has to be shifted from the old mode to a new mode.  Either someone else has to pick up the tab or the user has to feel he is paying for something different or more.  Or all professional journalism sources have to agree on a pay wall.

No matter what path professional journalism chooses, professional journalism still remains a commodity.  Will the industry shrink because of citizen journalism?  Perhaps.  Will it grow in the face of an ever increasing body of information?  Just as likely.  It is a commodity.  It goes beyond basic information or ideas which inherently have a price of $0.  It is verified, accurate information.  And that is uncommon and worth paying for.