February 28, 2005, 7.34pm • 149 comments » • 6,896 Views

The Fall and Fall of Journalism, LSE

I’m at the London School of Economics for a talk on blogging and citizen media, one of the few events about this stuff that I can think of taking place in the UK.

I decided toi copy the guy in front of me by whipping out my laptop, so elow are some rough notes added after these lines. My comments to follow tomorrow as the train has eaten my battery today…

Nice to chat to some nice people afterwards.

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Suw Charman

Bloggers fact-check the media, ie. Rathergate.
Strength of blogosphere - wide variety of expertise comes together quickly, hard for journalist to replicate so quickly.
Fake docs would have come to light eventually, but not as quickly as blogosphere did it.
Wake up call for journalists - don’t make assumptions about information the audience has.
But all this is in the minority!

Bloggers act as check but also simply a wider set of opinions you don’t see in mainstream press.

Future… symbiosis - journalists can look to blogosphere for info they wouldn’t otherwise have. Opps for cooperation, more constructive relationship.
Mutual attacks based on misunderstanding/mistrust.

“Lynchmob” too strong, but sometimes echo chamber by which bloggers only read bloggers who share their opinion, reinforcing same opinion.

Robin Mansell

Only 168,000 bloggers in UK - and no idea how many are *producers* ie. news/info creators.
New media have not created huge change.
Blogging? Well, there’s a spectrum og bloggers… although some lynchmobs, they may be lynching good guys and bad guys.
Problems with old media - but not problems that will lead to the downfall of professional journalism.

Leslie Bunder
(on regulation)

What’s the diff between real blogging and hobbyist blogging.
Blogging now is in the fanzine stage, ie. Danny Baker the fanzine writer became a pro writer; good blogs will survive; bad will disappear.

John Lloyd

Even before blogging, the envelope was being pushed - was not a big commentariat in press before 1970s.
In press, growth of the commentariat, particularly political commentary.
Bloggers have taken over that.
Journalism’s natural mode/assumption is… [politicians are untrustworthy?] - finding evidence of vast corruption in the small sin. A large implicit complaint against the immorality of our times - journalism taking the high ground, denying it to others.
Blogosphere has taken over this view.
Problem I have with the blogosphere is… journalism of fact is difficult, time-consuming, unravelling difficult situations, ie. foreign coverage.
Cutbacks in investigate journalism - so how the helldoes one blogger do that? That’s my doubt. Result will be reliance on mainstream media reporting.

Robin Mansell
Regulation…
Impossible to censor free speech.
But idea of [anarchic self-regulation is fanciful]

Suw Charman
Citizen reporting…
Journalism - small no. of people investigating a story.
Blogosphere - one person’s post not the end product… it’s a networked commentary through which you built up a detailed picture of event.
So whilst one person may not have time and resources to investigate, hivemind ferrets out the truth. Rathergate wasn’t a story written by one person - idea bloggers can’t probe a subject in depth is not correct - arena/form is different. Ongoing conversations takes sometimes days, months etc.

Leslie Bunder

OhMyNews is doing it, but still need editors suuubbing copy etc.
Newspapers have cut back so much on journalism, journalists start writing blogs in spare time and make a living out of it.
Journalism’s changing but we’re all confused.

Suw Charman…

Lot of journalists who are just not very good writers. Lot of people out there who are not pro journos but have the info and skills - that they’re not being paid doesn’t denigrate their contribution. Not all journalists have been trained, lots just come up from grassroots - now lots of bloggers coming up from grassroots!

Parallels with open source… ?

Robin Mansell…

… minority of bloggers.
But hybrid models emerging over time?
Will see whole spectrum of forms continuing.

John Lloyd

News is already a participatory exercise because it takes a team of people to create.
In blogging context… I just don’t see it. Can’t see how it would work.
Like journalism, most of it is bloody awful.
Journalism as craft re: making sense of the world is still a high/civic calling. We get knowledge of world through narratives about it.
Journalists should ensure is still a space for narratives Like the NHS.
We had assumed people would pay for these narratives (BBC still is that)

Suw Charman…

NowPublic takes stories and encourages people to post photos relating to stories - ie. U2 impromptu gig in NY…. text story, people on ground, people with phones add photos - supplementing what journalists are doing. Tools not ready yet.

Many examples of bloggers fleshing out stories. ie. derailment on NY subway

Accessibility…

Leslie Bunder
Tech is cheap. Anyone can have access.

Robin Mansell..
Who is “anyone”?
18% of UK net users have set up a homepage of their own, pointed to US Pew.
Skewed section of poppulation - ie. well educated, male
Access just start of story.
If skewed pop. participating, what will participatory dialogue look like re: political lrepresentation?

Questions session…

Generalists covering specialist topics