First off, a public apology to Chelsea, who had signed up to lead us in discussion today. It completely slipped my mind. Your professor is an idiot, what can I say? It’s certainly a reminder that next week, Tracy and Caitie lead us in discussion of the second part of The Long Tail.
To the post: We were discussing the crumbling gate that traditionally has stood between a news gathering organization and the publics it serves, an erosion or disintegration because of the multiplicity of news sources online. We discussed whether this is good or bad for democracy, and of course the answer is yes to both. That’s my first question for us now — in what ways is this crumbling good for democracy, and in what ways is the information free-for-all online actually impoverishing us as a self-ruling electorate?
I really liked Laura Means’s point about gatekeeping being essentially about ethics, about the ethics of any one particular news organization. Regardless of what others are publishing or writing, we adhere to the ethics of our particular organization in making decisions about what gets through or past our gate. I would like to hear from a few of you about why the gatekeeping role carries such an important mandate. The Friend and Singer book give us some important reasons to consider.
We discussed whether the division or delineation between “professional” journalists and “amateur” ones is important, relevant or even possible, particularly, as Rebekah mentioned, with the crowds of bloggers often doing what journalists traditionally have done. Perhaps what separates “professional” journalists and everyone else is, as Elements of Journalism puts it, “a respect for and adherence to the principles of truthfulness, an allegiance to citizens and community at large, and informing rather than manipulating.” Your reactions to this?
Perhaps my favorite take-away from the chapter was the notion that online, journalists increasingly are playing the role of “sense-makers” rather than that of gatekeepers. Anyone care to elaborate on this really important distinction? It certainly suggests that journalists will need to re-conceptualize their role in relation to information, increasingly making sense of all that is careening through cyberspace at such great speeds, filtering and ordering, organizing and arbitrating.
Lastly, a pointer to a post on the Media Law blog on the Campus Carrier newspaper thefts, for what it’s worth.
February 9, 2008 at 5:14 pm |
First of all, in terms of the crumbling of the “gate,” I think it is good for democracy because, since all American citizens have a right to their freedom of speech and a freedom to know the information around the world that effects their lives, it makes sense that news information shouldn’t be kept hidden from the public. The more the wall crumbles, the more access web-users have to news that may not have been available to them otherwise. However, the disintegration of the wall is also bad for democracy because of certain due powers given to those in a journalistic position. Even online journalists have power to pick and choose what information is revealed to the public. As long as the information is truth and without bias, the journalist has the right to do that as well. Because, as the book pointed out, with such power comes an obligation to ethical principles, and as long as journalists follow those guidelines, the public shouldn’t be angered about what they know and what information is kept from them. Also, I believe the difference between professional journalists and amateurs solely depends on the ethical prinicples of the person. Anyone has the right to publish material, whether it be online or print, because we have the right to say what we believe in a way that doesn’t harm other people. But it is the writers who seek the truth and report it to the public who are considered the real journalists because if what they write can be proven as false, who will rely on them for news ever again? As much as bloggers may appreciate their ablility to write whatever they want, it will be those writes with ethical principles who will always attract the most readers because deep down, no one wants to read and get their information from an unreliable source. And, lastly, I think that gatekeepers are more “sense-makers” now is because, when you are an online journalist, sometimes you have to condense the news into a few descriptive (yet truthful) graphs, to make sense of the news for some readers who may not understand it from another source. Since these journalists have to continuously guard the “gate” from too much information revealed to the public, they give the reader things that he thinks they should know in such a way that it makes sense to the reader. And this is for the reader who may not usually go anywhere else for information about the world around them. That at least makes sense to me.
February 9, 2008 at 5:20 pm |
The crumbling of gatekeeping has definitely improved our representative democracy, however there seem to be a lot of pros and cons to this influx of information. It is wonderful that we have access to whatever information we seek and that virtually anyone can get their hands on information, I noticed it a lot more in these most recent presidential primaries. I could truly find out just about anything I wanted on each one of the candidates. There is so much information out there.
Sometimes this free flow of information and crumbling of gates can impoverish us because it is overwhelming. Someone in class said they did not vote because they had yet to make a decision. I think it is possible that all of the information can confuse us and make it hard to decide on a candidate because we hear so much about each person. Another possibility is that some people might believe anything that they read and not all internet sources are credible. Only some of the sources out there are credible. You can’t just take anyones political blog and take it for credible truth. This leads me into my next thought.
There is a clear difference between professional and amateur journalists. Professionals are more credible and they follow a particular ethical code in most cases but mostly they are trained on seeking the truth. It seems that most journalists working for credible news sources such as NY Times, CNN, and Fox News , have been trained to filter information and only report on what is important and relevant. They have had training, in some form, of what news actually is and what the public needs to know. Some would argue that the public deserves to know everything and I agree with that. Currently I think that credible news sources give us the information that we would want/need to know.
February 9, 2008 at 6:59 pm |
To Sarah’s point that professional journalists are more credible, saying: “most journalists working for credible news sources such as NY Times, CNN, and Fox News have been trained to filter information and only report on what is important and relevant,” I think it is important to recognize that these journalists work within complex news organizations.
It is these organizations and their editorial processes that contribute greatly to the credibility of information, regardless of whose byline is on it or who the talking head delivering the news happens to be. It is these professional news gathering, filtering, editing processes that leads to accurate, comprehensive information.
So I encourage us to think not only at the atomic level — the individuals — but at the organizational and process levels, as well. Now contrast a professional journalist with an individual blogger, which is not to diminish the value or role of the blogger, but to mark the differences.
February 9, 2008 at 7:00 pm |
Oh, and please guys, let’s experiment with paragraph breaks (the ENTER button). For readability.
Thanks.
February 10, 2008 at 12:59 pm |
On one hand, I believe that the crumbling “gate” harms democracy because without the “gate” people are more likely to ignore the big issues they need to know about and focus on things like Britney Spears’s latest psychotic break. on the other, I believe that is could be good as well. Now people can find out more about topics that are important, but maybe got tossed aside in the past because they didn’t measure up to some of the more newsworthy stories.
As for the journalist’s new role being on of sense-making, I agree. In the absence of a gate controlling what gets to the public, it’s important that we still have people who adhere to certain ethical guidelines and who dedicate themselves to informing the public in the traditional style to delve into the deep stories to give us a reliable explanation of the facts. Bloggers are good for drawing attention to a story, but some stories need traditional journalistic values and approaches to clarify their meaning and, sometimes, their importance.
February 10, 2008 at 5:55 pm |
Along with the shift in gatekeeping from a professional, journalistic level to a personal, ethical level comes a shift in the mindset of the readers. When reading a newspaper, we know that at some point someone made the decision to include that information. Especially in the case of questionable material, we can assume that much deliberation went on before a decision was made. With the use of the internet, now any information can be spat out at anyone’s whim. But we, as the reader, know that, and take that into consideration when we take in the information. Applying this to the current political goings-on, most people will take what the newspapers print as more factual than information they may stumble across on the blogosphere.
It will be interesting to see the relationship between gatekeeping and democracy in this new realm of journalism play out. With this flood of information from the crumbling “gate,” people will most likely react one of two ways: indulge all the information they can get their hands on, accurate and not, or they will be overwhelmed by the amount of information and steer clear all together. Again, applying this concept to the presidential campaigns, I find myself overwhelmed by how much information is available for each candidate and I have not felt compelled to dig through it all. On the other hand, I have friends who eat up any sort of political tidbits they can find.
I think it would be correct in saying that this change in gatekeeping is both “good” and “bad” for democracy. Especially at first, these benefits and disadvantages will be prevalent, but I do believe that we as readers will also learn to adapt to this new form of gatekeeping.
February 10, 2008 at 9:09 pm |
The crumbling of the traditional journalistic gate has its downfalls as well as its advantages in regards to democracy. It is certainly a benefit to have a multitude of opinions/ thoughts/ viewpoints on any one particular subject. The amount and readiness of the information found on the internet makes it easier than ever for a citizen to be informed about one’s government. Because news is turning into more of a collaboration and an interactive process, the common person has more of a say as to what the big issues are of the day. And, as we have learned, journalism is the fourth estate, the watchdog, of the government. So now that people are more able to participate in the journalistic process, and so by default are now also a part of their own governments checks and balances. This newfound ability to collaboratively participate in our government is certainly a strength to our democracy.
However, there is a flip side. As Sarah pointed out, the editorial process is something that can help us determine what is credible and what is not when we are in doubt. And as Laura pointed out, the reader’s judgment to determine what’s valid.
As for the journalists new job of “sense making” instead of gate keeping, the role has been changed our of necessity. Journalists and professionals in the field don’t have a monopoly anymore on the majority of news that get published. Though they’ve lost power in one sense, they have regained it by filling another roll just as essential to society. There’s so much information that people need help figuring out what to pay attention to. It’s great that we have so many blogs for people to create forums of discussion. Society still, however, needs a place they can go where they can be sure of what they read because they know it went through an editorial process. They want to know just by glancing that the journalists is committed to truth as well as to the task of editing and fact checking. I think that this makes a news organization’s “brand” all the more essential for people without time to siphon through everything they read.
February 10, 2008 at 9:15 pm |
Chelsea said: “Because news is turning into more of a collaboration and an interactive process, the common person has more of a say as to what the big issues are of the day.”
I like this. Such a collaborative, distributive ecosystem is inherently more democratic, but that doesn’t necessarily, ipso facto make it better for democracy, for our democratic form of government. The common person has more of a say, yes, and that is good, but with less powerful watchdogs, with poorer watchdogs less able to pay investigative journalists, maybe government’s bureaucracy is able to creep yet more into the shadows, as one example of the dangers.
I hadn’t thought of this before Chelsea’s comment. I want to think some more.
February 10, 2008 at 9:53 pm |
I think that why all Americans have the right to free speech you as a “jouranalist” are in charge of what you print or put in your paper, blog ect.. and the things that are printed with your approval on them should be ethical and something that would not hurt someone else. Therefore I think that the crumbling of the gate is hurting us and not helping.
I don’t think that the company should have published that thing about the beheading because that is something that really cannot help someone from watching it. I mean how is someone helped from seeing something like that? We as Jouranalist are suppose to be informing the public for the good. We are giving them news that they could use and something like that I dont see how they can.
I think that just because one company runs something does not mean that we all should. What we run does reflect us and I think we should think about how we would feel if this was something happening to us before we run it.
Gatehousing is good because it helps to make sure that ethical things and harmful things do not get into the public.
February 10, 2008 at 10:02 pm |
I liked the point in the book about the process of journalism and how a journalist doesn’t just write their stories and then they go straight to the public, but first they go through editors to make sure the information is accurate and relevant. I think this accountability and check is important to the definition of a journalist.
I really like Chelsea’s last paragraph. I think she is totally right that the role of “sense-making” is just as essential as gatekeeping. With so much information out there it is completely understandable to become overwhelmed, but we can always pick up the NY Times and get the information that has been picked out from all the news out there. This is completely valuable to newspapers all around the world, and I think it will continue to be important for a long time.
February 10, 2008 at 10:25 pm |
It seems like most of us agree that gatekeeping on the web is more a process of helping readers condense information, than the traditional view of gatekeeping as choosing what readers hear about.
I agree with this idea, but I also think gatekeeping can be more on the web. I think gatekeeping can not only condense information into processable amounts, but also point readers in the right direction when they do want to dig deeper. Through links in news stories and blogs that provide access to primary information, readers don’t have to rely on journalists to interpret the facts for them.
In this way, I think if readers are able to check the facts for themselves and not rely solely on the opinion of one journalist that democracy is indeed increased by online journalism.
February 10, 2008 at 10:26 pm |
I agree with Chelsea and Laura: while endless information is nice, people still want to be able to trust the news and trust that the information they are receiving is factual.
I absolutely think what keeps bloggers and professional journalists separate now is a degree of ethics, deliberation and editing. Anyone can spit out information on a blog or in a comment on a blog, but how many people take the time to ask if what they’re publishing is maximizing truth and minimizing harm?
I also think there still remains some anonymity on the Web. If someone posts something and doesn’t want to put their real name on it, they don’t have to. I know that if you really wanted to find out someone’s identity, you could. But there’s less owning up to information and opinions on the Web. To me, it seems like a place to publish with a little less responsibility.
I guess I’m thinking of Rome’s Teresa Watson who libeled all sorts of people on her own Web site before eventually getting caught. It just seems to me that someone could have some corner of the Web that is just unethical central where all journalistic rules are broken and facts are unchecked and people are libeled and there’s so much information and other crap out there that no one would notice.
February 11, 2008 at 12:59 am |
In reading what others had to say, I see many similarities in our opinion of how gatekeeping is evolving into something new. I definitely agree with Amanda’s assessment that what separates professional journalists from bloggers is a degree of ethics, deliberation and editing.
However, I can’t help but think there is a certain grey area with that idea, in that it doesn’t necessarily count journalists who are also bloggers. Is it safe to assume that they can be the most ethical journalists that go through the process of editing and deliberation just to throw it out the window in a blog post?
I also have to agree with Amanda again when she said that anyone can spit out information in a blog post or comment without really taking the time to think if what they are publishing is maximizing truth and minimizing harm.
The one example that comes to mind is the case of the stolen Campus Carriers and the comments that followed in the Carrier online site. Granted, I understand the article in question was an opinion piece, which works a little differently, but some of the comments made didn’t necessarily lend themselves to either maximizing truth or minimizing harm. I think that at one point or another we’ve all seen something to this effect, even in the most objective of news pieces when it comes to an online medium.
February 11, 2008 at 1:19 am |
Everyone is entitled to speak their piece in this world of information overload. As much as I don’t want to, I’m basing my post on the Carrier web site where a forum on the cheerleader issue has become a place where journalistic facts and truths are being tossed out like yesterday’s trash. In the former role of a “gatekeeper”, this idiotic speech would not be published or known to anyone.
Many times in the last couple of days I have wanted to “gatekeep” and refocus the discussion, but I know now that it would both conflict with my role with the Carrier, and I’ve heard something about letting an idiot speak so that everyone knows it (or something like that…). Democracy is at an all time high when anyone and everyone is allowed to write whatever they feel like. However, when what they write is wrong, nobody benefits.
This is where the role of “professional” journalists, or at least people who pursue a higher code of ethics than the average person when it relates to information and facts will always be crucial. The generalization that non-traditional media can’t be trusted isn’t necessarily true, but news is more trustworthy when it has worked its way through a media source that involves more than a single reporter (try to disregard Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, please). Information wants to be free and the web has made this even more of a reality, but the strain that it has placed on truth and ethics can not be ignored.
February 11, 2008 at 1:20 am |
When I think of the blogs we’ve looked at from class, the most attractive aspect of them is the linking to the original ideas/information. This kind of allows the reader to determine the validity of the blog, and lets him/her filter out the blogs that are founded on pure opinion or heresy. The appeal of professional journalism is the absence of weighing the validity; that is to say, picking up a newspaper and being able to rely on its truthfulness is a convenience that most take for granted.
Yes, this is a time of transition for journalism. With most changes it is easy to get carried away and then have to reel back a little into a kind of hybrid between old and new. Right now is the rush into the new, the overhaul into digital, but once we throw on the brakes and find ourselves in this completely digital world, what would a reader need?
Enter the “sense-maker”. Endless amounts of information, opinion, and everything in between can make a head spin. Where do you begin? What is important? The professional journalist is used to filtering this information and have been doing it for quite awhile- they have built a whole system from this (gate-keeping). The convenience of not having to dig and search through all of this information is something the fast-paced, techno-savvy reader would want. I think the new journalist would be catering to smaller niches, but digging way deeper than before. With all of that information out there, digging deeper would be easier and cost less, but having a trust-worthy journalist do the digging for you? That is having your cake and eating it too.
February 11, 2008 at 6:49 am |
I believe that this crumbling gate even though currently boosts democracy, by giving us the reader a voice on what is important in our lives, will eventually give away too the “epic”. It appears to me that by asking the question on what happens with the crumbling of the gatekeeper, is just another way to approach out question on an early blog post of http://wanderingrocks.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/what-is-a-journalist-what-is-journalism-for/#comments
In my blog post there I said epic was going to happen once our ethical boundaries changed from SPJ to Pop Culture, the crumbling of the gatekeeper is the first step in this direction.
February 11, 2008 at 8:52 am |
I think something important to note is also the fact that while the traditional gatekeeper journalist is becoming more and more extinct, the people who are reading the information, the internet users are becoming their own gatekeepers.
Bloggers are readers (consumers of other blogs, websites) just as often as they are providing information.
There is a race to get information out there, and while much of it is important to the continued growth of a democracy based on the free spread of information, sometimes it is difficult to discern where the valid information starts and stops.
Stephen makes a good point when he says democracy is at an all time high when everyone and anyone can write is allowed to write whatever they feel like.
February 11, 2008 at 4:04 pm |
Laura Price asked what good could possibly come out of showing or airing a beheading. A lot, actually. When we send our sons and brothers to war, we should know what we’re doing. The horrors of war, the nature of evil of the enemy, the extent of the hatred directed toward the United States, these are things we should know.
We can still fill up our SUVs with gas to use the drive-thru at Starbucks to get a double mocha frappucino, watch a few YouTubes and, generally, pretend there is no war. Amuse ourselves to death. But it is a journalistic imperative to maximize truth. Horrific beheadings are a part of that truth.
Minimizing harm does not mean candy coating the news so a naive, innocent public doesn’t have to read about or view the horrors of the many ways people hurt one another. Minimizing harm could be exactly that, filtering out difficult, horrific realities and, therefore, presenting a false representation of just what in heck is going on out there.
I am not saying the right thing to do in the hypothetical is to show the video; I am merely pointing out that it is not as easy a question as at first it may appear, and to educate on just what “minimizing harm” actually means and does not mean. (And I am talking to and about us all, not any one of us.)
To Amanda’s note, it’s important to note that Teresa Watson has not been accused of libel herself, but does find herself embroiled in a libel case in which the sheriff or mayor of a small town is accusing a couple posting to Watson’s site of libel.
I also appreciate the point someone (Ashton?) made to the effect that the terms “journalist” and “blogger” are not mutually exclusive. There are lots of journalists who blog, and plenty of bloggers who commit acts of journalism.
February 11, 2008 at 10:10 pm |
When I hear the word “gatekeeper,” I picture some cliché reporter in clothes from the 1930s with his back against the so-called “gate” as he jealously guards vital pieces of information from his readers. The information free-for-all, on the other hand, features a geeky guy in glasses in a darkened room typing about aliens and other various conspiracies. To be honest, “gatekeeper” is just a word that’s been tossed about in my communication classes but has no real meaning to me. I can neither commet nor expand upon it or its break up.
As for the Elements of Journalism quote, it makes sense to me. The part about manipulation is where I see that geeky blogger again.