So much for a 'professional opinion': Can we, the people, take back the news?

Truth be told, over the last few weeks, I haven’t seemed to be able to stomach the mainstream news media (well, to be fair I’ve never really been able to stomach the mainstream news media, but alas) without the concepts of agenda-setting, framing, and gatekeeping bringing me down. And while we media majors are far more adept to understanding and analyzing the MSM’s construction of news and other media products, it would seem as though we aren’t the only individuals dissatisfied with the nature of the ‘news’ we’re getting fed.

An article taken from Digital Journal.com found that “two-thirds of the U.S. believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news.” The survey also suggests that a growing majority of Americans are hitting up the Web for their daily news fixes. Although this may or may not be new news to us, if we are to consider the fact that the survey documents an overall increase in dissatisfaction since last year, it’s fair to assume that the industry has officially entered the “things are going to get a lot worse before they start to get better” zone. According to McQuail’s Reader (2002), it’s no surprise everyone’s getting pissed off; “Nothing guarantees that all valuable information, ideas, theories, explanations, proposals, and points of view will find expression in the public forum […] Only so much news, analysis, and editorial opinion can be aired in the major channels of mass communication. Which views get covered and in what way, depends mainly on the economic and political structure and context of press institutions” (173). Here, it becomes easier to see why some people, mainly those far more self-motivated than myself, have simply stopped waiting for the mainstream machine to come around and have taken matters into their own hands as a means to ensure their self interests are the priority. I suppose the question that remains is: what is in our best interest anyway?

McQuail (2002) suggests that “the diversity of many voices rather than the stable force of a few, best serves freedom and the public interest” (166). That is not to say, however, that giving the audience exactly what it wants is in the public’s best interest, but rather “it entails acquainting the public with the broad range of possibilities and then allowing it [the public] to make a free choice with that extensive panoply” (167). Though these statements both support a similar stance – the need for wide array of voices present within the world of news media - who is better suited to determine what is and what isn’t in the public’s best interest than the very members of the public, those of who are seemingly void of any of the financial and organizational restrictions that large scale media corporations are subject to, themselves? The press placed in the hands of individual citizens would provide an enumerable number of diverse voices and opinion, but would also epitomize the concept of free press as defined by the reader.

Enter Civic Journalism.

As I’m sure we’ll be discussing, the advent and recent proliferation of “C-journalism” made possible through the Internet and other forms of new media has become quite the hot button issue around “professional” journalist roundtables. While many individuals (mainly those not concerned with advertisers and the fiery wrath of Rupert Murdoch) see civic journalism as a viable, and far more satisfying outlet for news, others would contend that the lack of assured objectivity and reliability. I suppose as a supporter of civic journalism (oh no, another biased writer!), I see it as a way to take the old fashioned roles of the media and place them into the hands of more responsible, less commercially biased individuals. Aside from advancing the causes of democracy and truth (no biggie), civic journalism possess an admirable watchdog character, serving not only an informative function through the distribution of ideas and values, but a critical one as well, similar to the role that the media used to carry with relatively limited bias. In addition, one of the finest facets of this new form of journalism is that it encourages a far more adept and selective media audience; consumers of these media texts will have to be far more active (selective) to seek out, sort through, and make sense of all the available voices. With civic journalism, we need not concern ourselves with the convergence of the press’s and public’s interests, when it is we that become the press.

So what’s the issue?

There seems to be quite a contradiction in the arguments of those that oppose the validity of this type of journalism, as McQuail (2007) even states that the journalism we know and understand outside of new media still debates its existence in the professional realm. ““There is a deficiency in respect of any exclusive core skill, and the same applies to the issue of autonomy and self-regulation. However journalists can claim to have an important social role and have moved in the direction of adopting ethical criteria. At best, however, it can only be said that journalism is an incomplete profession and faces obstacle of never being complete” (289). So much for a ‘professional opinion’ huh? Who are they to set standards when they themselves are unsure of the role they play as professionals? I’m hesitant to say that this is the future of this particular industry, as it seems to me that future is very much present with the proliferation of all these news blogs and civic journalism websites. While questions of objectivity will surely still find there way to the forefront, I think civic journalism provides news quickly and honestly and lends itself to a diversity of voices or opinions far greater than ever even fathomed at the advent of news media.

While there are a number of areas of discussion involving this subject I suppose I’m interested to hear everyone else’s thoughts and feelings concerning the state of news, where it needs to go, and whether or not they think civic journalism is a viable future for the industry. Can we the people take back the news and make it what we need it to be?

- Steve Callahan