What I really wished I’d said on the radio today
I was on the radio today. Ed Bishop, a journalism professor at Webster University and former editor of the St. Louis Journalism Review, invited me onto his show Reality Now on KDHX 88.1 FM. The topic: The use of “citizen journalism,” forums, blogs and reader-generated content on online news sites. Particularly, he was interested in how the St. Louis Post-Dispatch uses those tools, of course.
I can’t say the interview broke any ground; it was more of a primer, I’d guess, for anyone listening — which I assume may have been the audience Ed was trying to reach. I was happy to hear in his questions that he seemed pretty enamored with the uses of user-generated content (as he apparently spends time in our Blues Talk hockey forum).
There were a two questions I wish I could answer again — not that my answers weren’t fine. They were. But I could have been a little more concise.
The first (and I’m paraphrasing his question a bit): What’s happening to the role of the editor as the gatekeeper of information?
What I said, but could have said more matter-of-factly: That role is gone. We’re not the gatekeepers anymore. That’s why we better start paying attention to so-called “citizen media.” We have a role; I believe it’s a valuable role. Journalists who ferret out information, verify facts, present balanced reports and help “edit the world” will have a role, I hope, for a long time. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking we’re gatekeepers.
The second focused on the ability of poorer people to be well-informed in an era that might require a computer and software to get the news. Does that concern me?
I said it did concern me, but that there are so many sources of news today that anyone who wants to be informed can be without much trouble. I’m not worried about an elite class emerging, where only the rich can be well-informed.
I should have said no, it doesn’t concern me — for the same reasons I said. And because computers are getting cheaper and cheaper. They will continue to get cheaper. The software is free. I can’t predict what form electronic media might take — maybe we won’t even need a computer in the sense that we think of it today. There’s seemingly no economic barrier to owning a cell phone. And that’ll continue to grow as a news source.
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August 7th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Actually, I would argue that a class of elite news-consumers already exists. People who get a large percentage of their news from the internet tend consistently to score on tests as better informed than people who don’t. The internet gives one the power to research stories and read multiple points of view on one issue, and often gets one access to first-person accounts of events not available elsewhere. This doesn’t happen with the top-down broadcast news model.
Of course, not all people who use the internet for news are wealthy. Many are middle-class or working class. But I’d argue that the very poor do not have easy access to the internet. I often see poor people at my local library lining up for the privilege of using a computer with internet access for one hour. And many people in rural areas do not have regular access to the internet at all.
And though it’s true that many of the working poor have access to cell phones, they often do not have internet access through those phones. Heck, I don’t have internet access on MY phone (though that is because I am a cell phone luddite not because I can’t afford it).
I do think that everyone these days has plenty of access to basic news. But I’d prefer that the elite class of power-news-consumers expand, because I believe a well-informed populace is an essential component of a well-run democracy. I hope for a day when access to the internet is as ubiquitous and cheap as access to a landline phone once was.