Write your own news.
Most newspapers today have web sites that permit us to read our news online instead
of holding the paper at reading distance from our eyes and alternating between
reading a paragraph and taking a sip from our cup of coffee. The difference, however,
is negligible - it's almost completely the same news.
Sites such as Wikinews, however,
seem to be encouraging us to take part in participatory journalism - write and
edit as you read. Is the news that gets reported on a site such as this actually
different than the news that we might find on a more traditional newspaper site?
The main Wikinews page carries a section entitled "Original Reporting",
with the explanation:
The most recent articles published on Wikinews containing original reporting and research exclusive to Wikinews.
On a daily basis there seem to be only about two or three items listed under this
category - and even they don't seem to be what we might call "exclusives".
It all seems to be pretty much the same news, no matter who's serving it up to
us. As to whether the reporting is different, the writing definitely seems less
professional, if that really matters. The main problem would seem to be that unlike
Wikipedia items that can continue to be edited over time until they achieve a
level of reliability and neutrality, by the time that Wikinews items are similarly
edited, they're no longer news.
Do we really want to be the producers of news stories (which is, of course,
quite different than being the producers of the stuff that make up those stories)?
There are already a vast number of journalists
around who are sniffing around for a good story, and many of these have received
quite a bit of training that makes them able to determine where it's worth sniffing,
and how to get to the important facts and background. Is there some reason why
we shouldn't be satisfied with the work these people are doing? Assuming that
everybody has one axe or another to grind, rather than bringing us true objectivity,
grass-roots journalism would probably only be exchanging one group's subjectivity
for another's. And perhaps there's something positive to be said about "normative"
journalism. When all of us read the same paper, we're creating a commonality
that gives us something to talk about at the water cooler. If all of us are
getting our input from different sources, the news, and our collective reactions
to them, seem to lose their importance as a source of social cohesion.
Go to: One case in point, or
Go to: How many prosumers can fit on the head
of cyberspace?