Joseph Addison
In the April issue of The American Prospect, senior editor Garance Franke-Ruta asks: Are bloggers journalists?
"Are bloggers journalists?" is a question that's been kicking around for a few years, and both bloggers and journalists answer it by saying no.
SusanG, NYBri, troutfishing, georgia10 and more than 700 dKos Internet activists are about to turn Ms. Franke-Ruta's head around. While they're at it, they may alter the course of American politics and re-invent journalism. They won't do it alone, of course. And I should say "we," since I'm one of the 700.
If this sounds presumptuous, well, you're not paying attention. Please join in, and bring your opinion.
ePluribus Media, the all-volunteer "citizen journalist" movement born of DailyKos.com participants on Jan. 28, is considering adoption of
A Shared Statement of Purpose.
ePluribus Media "citizen journalists" may read and accept the Shared Statement of Purpose as a condition of participating in ePM projects.
A Shared Statement of Purpose
Follow this path: journalism.org > Resources > Professional Guidelines > Journalism Principles > A Statement of Shared Purpose. Straight to the heart. The page index adds two more defining layers: > Committee of Concerned Journalists > Core Principles > Journalism Principles > A Statement of Shared Purpose.
"A Statement of Shared Purpose" expresses core ideals, First Principles, that most of us would love to imagine journalists embrace. The Project For Excellence in Journalism at Journalism.org, which sponsored the Committee of Concerned Journalists and facilitated the Shared Statement of Purpose, claims that the Project:
...pursues the aim of clarifying standards by bringing journalists together to decide for themselves what their purpose and aims are.
In her American Prospect article, Franke-Ruta casts bloggers and journalists as simplistic red-state-blue-state opponents:
Journalists insist ... most bloggers don't do original reporting or double-check information for its accuracy. Bloggers, for their part, often see themselves as polemicists and activists and chafe at being held to journalistic standards.
Journalism.org's Statement of Shared Purpose focuses on a universal ideal that likewise defines the dKos community:
Journalism's first obligation is to the truth
Democracy depends on citizens having reliable, accurate facts put in a meaningful context. Journalism does not pursue truth in an absolute or philosophical sense, but it can - and must - pursue it in a practical sense.
And how does one pursue truth, in a practical sense?
Journalists should be as transparent as possible about sources and methods so audiences can make their own assessment of the information.
Sounds to me like the standard demanded of every dKos user - by every other dKos user. The Statement of Shared Purpose, which began as the Statement of Concern composed by 24 professional journalists in 1997, seemed to foresee the rise of ePluribus Media's brand of citizen journalism:
Even in a world of expanding voices, accuracy is the foundation upon which everything else is built -- context, interpretation, comment, criticism, analysis and debate. The truth, over time, emerges from this forum. As citizens encounter an ever greater flow of data, they have more need -- not less -- for identifiable sources dedicated to verifying that information and putting it in context.
Now, backspace to Franke-Ruta at The American Prospect.
Not only are most bloggers not journalists; increasingly they are also partisan operatives whose agendas are as ideological as they come. Using the cover of anonymity (many bloggers use pseudonyms), the cacophony of the relatively new medium, and the easily inflamed passions of the Web, these partisan political operatives are becoming experts at stirring up hornets' nests of angry e-mails to editors, mounting campaigns to force advertisers to pull out of news shows, and, most disturbingly, spreading outright false information.
Keep in mind that Franke-Ruta is addressing an audience for whom "many bloggers use pseudonyms" serves as worthy knowledge. She's addressing them from somewhere to the left of Calvin Coolidge, and many of the partisans she massages are "Jeff Gannons" -- the usual VRWC suspects whose "product" is even worse than she describes.
And while Franke-Ruta delivers the biggest-so-far off-site description of the birth of citizen journalism at dKos, she suffers from Prospect's chronic affinity for worms in the biscuits even where there ain't none (an old pirate rhyme, argh!). Note how she smears dKos with a phrase crafted for VRWC talk radio:
...the widely read liberal blog run by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, now also a major Democratic fund-raiser.
Three hundred years ago, western culture faced an explosion of communications technology every bit as profound as the Internet: journalism.
Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, published some of the finest examples of expository writing in the English language in The Tatler, (1709-1711) and The Spectator (1711-1712).
Go read any one of their essays; they are truly "discussions of current events, literature, and gossip often written in a highly ironic and refined style," in other words, pure blog. We're not inventing anything new here.
On a regular basis, dKos "...pursues the aim of clarifying standards by bringing [us folks] together to decide for themselves what their purpose and aims are."
So give it up. The Media Center at the American Press Institute wants to call us cyberjournalists. Garance Franke-Ruta could certainly use a clue. Citizen journalists? Bloggers? Internet activists? Concerned Citizens? What would you name us? What do you name yourself?
Is the Statement of Shared Purpose a worthy document?
Note: Earlier this morning Agathena posted Bloggers didn't bring down Dan Rather with another look at Franke-Ruta`s article that's recommended reading: Agathena "outs" a VRWC usual suspect who occasionally trolls at dKos.