Who is a Journalist?
Dan Gillmor is a writer and educator at Arizona Sate University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Recently, Dan wrote an article for Salon.com on "Who's a journalist? Does that matter?"
I agree completely that with tools like facebook, twitter, digg, reddit and a host of other outlets for laymen to communicate, we all are creating media, and lots of it.
I also agree that not all of this is journalism. Not even Dan calls himself a journalist most of the time feeling that
"Calling myself a journalist, which I did from time to time, tended to make me feel like I was pretending to a higher role than the craft, however vital and honorable it may be, merited."
While trying to define who is a journalist in class, the example of Jamal Albarghouti was brought up. For those of you who don't know this gentleman by name, he is the only person to have captured video during the Virginia Tech shootings. Jamal used his Nokia cell phone to capture not only footage of a S.W.A.T. Team entering a building, but also 26 shots fired by the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho.
Many fine points for both side of the argument were brought up during the discussion. Jamal acted with the Media in mind, wanting to show people what happened, instead of running away, he started rolling video and even moved forward toward the danger. On the other hand, Jamal is an engineering graduate student, while he did take the video he gave it away (not a professional choice), and he provided absolutely zero context for anyone watching the video.
When you watched the video the first time, did you know what it was? I sure didn't. My position is that Jamal, and many other people in positions similar to his, are not journalists. They don't practice journalism as a vocation, they don't provide context, they don't even know what is going on half the time. While their actions are valued and are important, Journalists are the ones who take this information and turn it into something of substance for the audience.
Thoughts on Social Media
Who doesn't enjoy a good tweet about someone's poop?
"Holy Crap! ...I need more fiber in my diet.
7:32 PM Aug 24th via txt"
Or maybe about the sexual encounters of a newly-wed couple as a prank from the best man?- "They’re on the job! #26 - Action commenced at 22.04GMT. Weight: 156KG.5:04 PM Feb 18th via Power Twitter
- They’re off the job! #25 – Action concluded at 22.15GMT. Duration: 8m.10 s. Frenzy Index: 10 (). Judge’s Comment: "OOF!"5:16 PM Feb 17th via Power Twitter"
I love twitter. I think it is a fun way to keep up with people you know or people in similar lines of work to you, or just follow someone who likes to party.
Twitter also provides an opportunity for people to quickly provide information to each other. Did you read that Dan Gillmor article I linked above? Do you recall the traffic information tweets during that snowstorm? Yeah, that's pretty much why twitter rocks.
On the other hand, we have Facebook. Fuck you, Facebook.
and I'll leave you with that for now. I'll finish it when I get back from class.
and by back from class I really mean at 2:26am the next day because, well, that's just how I roll.
Back to Facebook. When I first got accepted to Purdue, one of the first things I did was head over to Facebook (shown to me by my older brother) and start an account. It was a fun tool that I used to keep in touch with high school friends, and people I met at Purdue. Then came bumper stickers, then gifts. Then farmville. And mafia wars. And now god knows what because they've changed their layout so many God damned times I don't even know what I'm looking at.
And in the meantime Mark Zuckerberg and his team of cronies have decided to change the privacy settings to, oh wait, that's right. There are no privacy settings.
What was that Facebook? A public outcry for control over our own content and respecting copyright and privacy? Oh, I guess you could just send out a quick press release and put a few confusing-as-hell-and-impossible-to-get-to settings back up. But don't worry, Zuckerberg is still impossible to friend and I'm sure his data isn't getting mined at all...
Yet I still use you facebook. Why? Because of your 500 million users. Not because I like the system, but because it is the easiest way for me to keep in touch with my friends all over the world.
Granted, when Diaspora is released to the public, I'm opening an account there, but I'll leave my FB account open so others can still contact me if all else fails.
/rant.
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