REBECCA E SPITZER

I take back anything I might have said about The Values and Craft of American Journalism not being entirely relevant. Campell’s essay, “Journalism Enlarged: Stuff That Matters,” seems to be speaking directly to the tipping point we’ve reached. As the piece is described, “… In Campbell’s new frame, citizens must be partners with journalists in building the public conversation on the stuff that matters.” Does that not shout bloggers, commenters, or twitter-ers to you? Though it was published in 2001, the piece is incredibly spot-on. Furthermore, Campbell goes one step farther: not only must citizens aid journalists, argues Campbell, but journalists must take this opportunity to help citizens reconcile their lives with our changing society, helping them “achieve lucid summations of what is happening in the world and within their lives.” I agree; this is the path that journalism must take as we move into the future. The question is: how? And as journalists and citizens help each other, do we reach a conflict? What becomes the difference between journalist and citizen?

Campbell discusses Joseph Pulitzer’s view of journalism, taken from the early 20^th century. Pulitzer insisted that journalists must take their profession to the next level, taking an interest in “public questions, public causes, public welfare, public good… The paper I regard as a public institution.” I couldn’t help but ask myself- are these values that are missing in today’s news media? Certainly, journalists believe they are spreading information for the good of the public, but it the news media really holding up its end of the bargain as a truly public institution? Sometimes, it seems as if journalists are simply chronicling the elite of the nation, and, as Campbell writes, journalists seem “dubious of ordinary people’s competence as citizens.” As James Carey of Columbia University has agreed, “that worldview… permeates contemporary journalism and has debased, rather than enlarged, that craft.” A change must occur, both in the way journalists view their readership and the way that the readership interacts with journalism.

So, Campbell asks how journalists can better convey information, better paint a picture of our reality- this is obviously easier when journalists respect the intelligence of their readership. He writes, “How can citizens connect the troubles in their lives with the issues in the larger public sphere? How can journalists help citizen develop more capacity to use information and reason to create meaning [and] explore values?” C Wright Mills of Columbia University notes that “we journalists have a great opportunity to develop ‘the journalistic imagination’ to better connect what happens in the larger world to the troubles in people’s private lives.” With today’s technology, it’s possible that this convergence of public and private problems seems possible. A combination of personal social media and news-based social media has the power to spread news and information that is deeply linked to one’s personal life, and an aggregate feed of personal blogs could have the power to tell a news story in a deeply personal manner.

On that note, Campbell discusses Slashdot.org, a blog for “nerds” run by Rob Malda and Jeff Bates. The blog was a pioneer in aggregating news and allowing for user commenting and discussion, and is a model for all news organizations on the web. This type of personalized community is powerful, for it both allows a group of like-minded users to collectively split up the duties of sifting through news stories and allows them to collectively discuss and expand upon the news.

For those of us without a community like Slashdot, it is harder to process the information thrown at us every day. “We are drowning in information and starving for wisdom,” wrote biologist E O Wilson. He continues, “The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.” In the Internet age, this more and more true every day. Even with my familiarity and comfort with the Internet, I often feel like I’m drowning in information. Journalists must find a way to become effective synthesizers, and technology can help. There are ways to highlight a deeper story, to find patterns and meaning in the epic pile of available information.

As Campbell writes, “We need to transform our newsrooms into open cultures- open to learning from citizens, communities, our colleagues in other parts of the organization. If we don’t, we’ll never find a way to enlarge journalism, probe deeper, and initiate great arguments.” This is true on many levels, and every day it becomes more obvious that journalists and citizens need to work together with mutual respect, as they can help each other understand our world. With the way citizens now interact over the internet, journalists have no choice but to accept the help of citizens and respect the journalism that citizens are producing. The question is- where is the line between citizen and journalist? If journalists respect citizens as just fully competent and citizens begin to synthesize information for themselves (this has already happened with blogs, etc. obviously) – how do we distinguish the two roles? How does the role of a “journalist” change? Aren’t we all journalists?

Related things to note, perhaps:

Chris Anderson’s new definitions of journalism, news, media, and other related terms

New way of socially commenting on articles, linking news to your personal life and social network.