Unfettered 'citizen journalism' too risky

Re: Unfettered 'citizen journalism' too risky


Not to put too fine a point on it--bullshit. Everyone in the United States has the right to freely express themselves so long as they do not engage in or incite to criminality. The vast majority of "citizen journalism" consists of still or video images produced by individuals on the scene of an event. There is nothing in law which prohibits them from doing so, unless one were to allege that they were in a restricted area. In such a case, the illegality of their action would arise from entering the restricted area.

One thing is certain, and that is that no "industry" has any right to restrict or "regulate" the free expression or the legal actions of citizens.

Setanta
Setanta, I agree with you. BUT---too many people rely on and believe some of the crap posted, which lack any ethical and professional standards. Too many journalists lack those same standards. The commentators are the worst offenders because they have a license to lie and spin, but at least we know they are only spouting opinions.

A good example are the masses of young people who don't read newspapers, delivered or on line, who use the wonderful shows of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to get their news. I love these guys but don't reply on them for news.

Bush's press secretary is an example re her ignorance of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Either her history teacher was a dud or she was a stupid student.

Look at the millions of people who rely on FOX News. Will we be able to trust the Wall Street Journal now that the Devil from Oz owns it?

I frequently become terribly disappointed in the Press. Our Founders gave them Constitutional protection to maintain an informed public on which our Republic depends. They too often do not live up to that extraordinary right with the exception of a few patriots who believe in the Press' Constitutional mission.

John Edwards is right. Our country has been hijacked by corporate power and greed. We were ignorant and lazy. We gave it to them and the corporate-dominated Press has largely been a partner in that disaster.

BBB

The Polarization of Extremes
By CASS R. SUNSTEIN, professor of law and political science at the University of Chicago, is author of Republic 2.0, published in October by Princeton University Press.
12/14/07

In 1995 the technology specialist Nicholas Negroponte predicted the emergence of "the Daily Me" ?- a newspaper that you design person-ally, with each component carefully screened and chosen in advance. For many of us, Negroponte's prediction is coming true. As a result of the Internet, personalization is everywhere. If you want to read essays arguing that climate change is a fraud and a hoax, or that the American economy is about to collapse, the technology is available to allow you to do exactly that. If you are bored and upset by the topic of genocide, or by recent events in Iraq or Pakistan, you can avoid those subjects entirely. With just a few clicks, you can find dozens of Web sites that show you are quite right to like what you already like and think what you already think.

Actually you don't even need to create a Daily Me. With the Internet, it is increasingly easy for others to create one for you. If people know a little bit about you, they can discover, and tell you, what "people like you" tend to like ?- and they can create a Daily Me, just for you, in a matter of seconds. If your reading habits suggest that you believe that climate change is a fraud, the process of "collaborative filtering" can be used to find a lot of other material that you are inclined to like. Every year filtering and niche marketing become more sophisticated and refined. Studies show that on Amazon, many purchasers can be divided into "red-state camps" and "blue-state camps," and those who are in one or another camp receive suitable recommendations, ensuring that people will have plenty of materials that cater to, and support, their predilections.

Of course self-sorting is nothing new. Long before the Internet, newspapers and magazines could often be defined in political terms, and many people would flock to those offering congenial points of view. But there is a big difference between a daily newspaper and a Daily Me, and the difference lies in a dramatic increase in the power to fence in and to fence out. Even if they have some kind of political identification, general-interest newspapers and magazines include materials that would not be included in any particular Daily Me; they expose people to topics and points of view that they do not choose in advance. But as a result of the Internet, we live increasingly in an era of enclaves and niches ?- much of it voluntary, much of it produced by those who think they know, and often do know, what we're likely to like. This raises some obvious questions. If people are sorted into enclaves and niches, what will happen to their views? What are the eventual effects on democracy?

To answer these questions, let us put the Internet to one side for a moment and explore an experiment conducted in Colorado in 2005, designed to cast light on the consequences of self-sorting. About 60 Americans were brought together and assembled into a number of groups, each consisting of five or six people. Members of each group were asked to deliberate on three of the most controversial issues of the day: Should states allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions? Should employers engage in affirmative action by giving a preference to members of traditionally disadvantaged groups? Should the United States sign an international treaty to combat global warming?

As the experiment was designed, the groups consisted of "liberal" and "conservative" enclaves ?- the former from Boulder, the latter from Colorado Springs. It is widely known that Boulder tends to be liberal, and Colorado Springs tends to be conservative. Participants were screened to ensure that they generally conformed to those stereotypes. People were asked to state their opinions anonymously both before and after 15 minutes of group discussion. What was the effect of that discussion?

In almost every case, people held more-extreme positions after they spoke with like-minded others. Discussion made civil unions more popular among liberals and less popular among conservatives. Liberals favored an international treaty to control global warming before discussion; they favored it far more strongly after discussion. Conservatives were neutral on that treaty before discussion, but they strongly opposed it after discussion. Liberals, mildly favorable toward affirmative action before discussion, became strongly favorable toward affirmative action after discussion. Firmly negative about affirmative action before discussion, conservatives became fiercely negative about affirmative action after discussion.

The creation of enclaves of like-minded people had a second effect: It made both liberal groups and conservative groups significantly more homogeneous ?- and thus squelched diversity. Before people started to talk, many groups displayed a fair amount of internal disagreement on the three issues. The disagreements were greatly reduced as a result of a mere 15-minute discussion. In their anonymous statements, group members showed far more consensus after discussion than before. The discussion greatly widened the rift between liberals and conservatives on all three issues.

The Internet makes it exceedingly easy for people to replicate the Colorado experiment online, whether or not that is what they are trying to do. Those who think that affirmative action is a good idea can, and often do, read reams of material that support their view; they can, and often do, exclude any and all material that argues the other way. Those who dislike carbon taxes can find plenty of arguments to that effect. Many liberals jump from one liberal blog to another, and many conservatives restrict their reading to points of view that they find congenial. In short, those who want to find support for what they already think, and to insulate themselves from disturbing topics and contrary points of view, can do that far more easily than they can if they skim through a decent newspaper or weekly newsmagazine.

A key consequence of this kind of self-sorting is what we might call enclave extremism. When people end up in enclaves of like-minded people, they usually move toward a more extreme point in the direction to which the group's members were originally inclined. Enclave extremism is a special case of the broader phenomenon of group polarization, which extends well beyond politics and occurs as groups adopt a more extreme version of whatever view is antecedently favored by their members.

Why do enclaves, on the Internet and elsewhere, produce political polarization? The first explanation emphasizes the role of information. Suppose that people who tend to oppose nuclear power are exposed to the views of those who agree with them. It stands to reason that such people will find a disproportionately large number of arguments against nuclear power ?- and a disproportionately small number of arguments in favor of nuclear power. If people are paying attention to one another, the exchange of information should move people further in opposition to nuclear power. This very process was specifically observed in the Colorado experiment, and in our increasingly enclaved world, it is happening every minute of every day.

The second explanation, involving social comparison, begins with the reasonable suggestion that people want to be perceived favorably by other group members. Once they hear what others believe, they often adjust their positions in the direction of the dominant position. Suppose, for example, that people in an Internet discussion group tend to be sharply opposed to the idea of civil unions for same-sex couples, and that they also want to seem to be sharply opposed to such unions. If they are speaking with people who are also sharply opposed to these things, they are likely to shift in the direction of even sharper opposition as a result of learning what others think.

The final explanation is the most subtle, and probably the most important. The starting point here is that on many issues, most of us are really not sure what we think. Our lack of certainty inclines us toward the middle. Outside of enclaves, moderation is the usual path. Now imagine that people find themselves in enclaves in which they exclusively hear from others who think as they do. As a result, their confidence typically grows, and they become more extreme in their beliefs. Corroboration, in short, reduces tentativeness, and an increase in confidence produces extremism. Enclave extremism is particularly likely to occur on the Internet because people can so easily find niches of like-minded types ?- and discover that their own tentative view is shared by others.

It would be foolish to say, from the mere fact of extreme movements, that people have moved in the wrong direction. After all, the more extreme tendency might be better rather than worse. Increased extremism, fed by discussions among like-minded people, has helped fuel many movements of great value ?- including, for example, the civil-rights movement, the antislavery movement, the antigenocide movement, the attack on communism in Eastern Europe, and the movement for gender equality. A special advantage of Internet enclaves is that they promote the development of positions that would otherwise be invisible, silenced, or squelched in general debate. Even if enclave extremism is at work ?- perhaps because enclave extremism is at work ?- discussions among like-minded people can provide a wide range of social benefits, not least because they greatly enrich the social "argument pool." The Internet can be extremely valuable here.

But there is also a serious danger, which is that people will move to positions that lack merit but are predictable consequences of the particular circumstances of their self-sorting. And it is impossible to say whether those who sort themselves into enclaves of like-minded people will move in a direction that is desirable for society at large, or even for the members of each enclave. It is easy to think of examples to the contrary ?- the rise of Nazism, terrorism, and cults of various sorts. There is a general risk that those who flock together, on the Internet or elsewhere, will end up both confident and wrong, simply because they have not been sufficiently exposed to counterarguments. They may even think of their fellow citizens as opponents or adversaries in some kind of "war."

The Internet makes it easy for people to create separate communities and niches, and in a free society, much can be said on behalf of both. They can make life a lot more fun; they can reduce loneliness and spur creativity. They can even promote democratic self-government, because enclaves are indispensable for incubating new ideas and perspectives that can strengthen public debate. But it is important to understand that countless editions of the Daily Me can also produce serious problems of mutual suspicion, unjustified rage, and social fragmentation ?- and that these problems will result from the reliable logic of social interactions.

India is on an extraordinary media proliferation spree. Delhi just got its 14th morning daily in English, the tabloid Mail Today. New TV channels have been surfacing at the rate of two a month, and eight more are in the queue to make their debut in the next few months, we are told.

And what of journalism? The news part of the media and entertainment sector is expanding massively too, without enough media professionals to go round. Each new entrant simply doubles salaries and takes away from the existing newspapers and TV channels. Salaries are shooting up, the skill pool is not expanding at the same rate.

A newspaper editor who lost two talented senior journalists to the new channel bouquet INX admitted that he went up to offering Rs.300,000 a month to try to retain one of them but lost him nonetheless to the predator channel which offered Rs.600,000 a month.

Media is booming in the new India. But journalism is in danger of falling behind.
Media is booming in the new India. But journalism is in danger of falling behind.
Media is booming in the new India. But journalism is in danger of falling behind.
Media is booming in the new India. But journalism is in danger of falling behind.
http://www.boloji.com/opinion/0441.htm

Ramafuchs
Ramafuchs, your scenario has been repeated throughout the history of information presentation in many forms. What is so sad about today's model is that professional journalism is being clobbered by the entertainment industry in response to a immature and brainless public.

It's always about the money. I kkeep asking myself if the real God people seek is money?



BBB

Blogg Criticism of a Campaign Article Becomes a Melee
At Web Site for Journalists, Criticism of a Campaign Article Becomes a Melee
By MARIA ASPAN, Journalism Review
Published: December 17, 2007

A usual round of media self-criticism turned into a schoolyard brawl last week, as editors, reporters and bloggers traded insults over a front-page article in The Washington Post, all at the very online water cooler where they usually get their news about the industry.

The Post article, which ran on Nov. 29, was about rumors of Barack Obama's ties to the Muslim world. The piece drew widespread criticism: the Columbia Journalism Review said the article "may be the single worst campaign '08 piece to appear in any American newspaper so far this election cycle."

The Post's ombudsman, Deborah Howell, devoted a column on Dec. 9 to the backlash against it, concluding that "the rumors were old" and that "convincing evidence of their falsity wasn't included in the story."

Then things got really ugly ?- and personal. On Dec. 10, Chris Daly, a Boston University journalism professor, posted an entry on his blog that turned the debate over the merits of the article's reporting into a debate over the merits of its author, Perry Bacon Jr., a Post staff reporter.

"Since when does The Post assign 27-year-olds to write Page 1 presidential campaign pieces?," wrote Mr. Daly, who is 53 and had written for The Post as a freelance regional correspondent for eight years starting in 1989. "This is fast-tracking with a vengeance."

After Jim Romenesko, who runs a popular media blog for the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based nonprofit school for journalists, posted a link to Mr. Daly's blog post, Mr. Bacon's friends and colleagues rushed to defend him.

Soon the Romenesko Web site was full of letters of support from Mr. Bacon's past and present colleagues and other reporters, including Michael Barbaro and Adam Nagourney of The New York Times, Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine, and Peter Baker of The Washington Post. Media critics on outside sites like The Huffington Post and Slate also weighed in, with posts that the site also linked to.

The most through-the-looking-glass moment of the week, however, came when The Post's executive editor, Leonard Downie Jr., criticized the Romenesko blog ?- in a publicly posted letter to Mr. Romenesko ?- for linking to Mr. Daly's original complaint in the first place. Mr. Daly's post was "an outrageous personal attack on a fine young journalist, and I'm disappointed that it has been given circulation on Romenesko," Mr. Downie wrote.

Then he, too, got personal, taking a swipe at Mr. Daly. "Daly, however, during his time as a contract stringer for this newspaper, failed to earn a similar role for himself" by getting hired as a staff reporter, Mr. Downie wrote.

Mr. Downie said on Friday that he stood by his comments. His remark about Mr. Daly was accurate "and goes to motivation," he said, adding that motivation was relevant because Mr. Daly's "posting was so outside the bounds."

He also stood by his criticism of the Romenesko site. "My response to Daly was not to say that Romenesko should not publish criticism of Washington Post journalism," he said. "But that's not what this was, this was an unjustified personal attack."

As for Mr. Daly, he said by telephone on Friday that he had been "a little surprised at the sheer volume and intensity of the reaction" to his original post. In a follow-up entry on Dec. 11, he wrote that he had "meant no disrespect to Mr. Bacon personally. In my view, this is not about him."

Instead, Mr. Daly said by telephone, he had meant to focus on "standards of journalistic practice," like the guidance and editing of reporters at influential media organizations. He added that he regretted the way he had phrased his comments about Mr. Bacon.

"It didn't come out right," he said. "Blogging is very much an off-the-cuff enterprise, it's not like the careful research that I do."

Mr. Bacon declined to comment and referred a reporter to his editor, Bill Hamilton, the assistant managing editor for politics. "It's just unfortunate that it went to that level," Mr. Hamilton said of Mr. Daly's comments. "I just think he got into an area that just wasn't relevant. He should have just stuck to the merits of debating the story."

And what did the man behind the curtain, who provided the forum for the intramedia hair-pulling, think of the fallout? "Mr. Downie's letter didn't surprise me," Mr. Romenesko said in an e-mail message on Friday. "I'm sure most editors would prefer that I not link to stories that criticize their staffers. There's no reason I should have passed on Chris Daly's blog post."

He added, "When I posted Daly's item about Perry, I was most interested in getting readers' reactions to the professor's complaint about young journalists getting big assignments; I certainly got them."