Manifesto of the open source media
Journalism Blogging and online reporting undermine the information monopoly of "Big Media".
Journalism Blogging and online reporting undermine the information monopoly of "Big Media".
After the software and music industries, the internet is now democratizing journalism. Anyone reviewing current media coverage will come across more and more examples of the kind of web-based "grassroots journalism" whose program is displayed here. The career of the legendary Dan Rather, for example, recently came to an abrupt end when a few bloggers proved to the CBS anchorman on the Internet that one of his reports on George W. Bush was based on false facts. In the Old World, too, the idea and practice of "grassroots journalism" is enjoying exponentially increasing popularity and - as a result - growing impact. Although Le Monde has recently lost its editor-in-chief, it has also introduced a weblog ranking (www.lemonde.fr/blogs), the top five of which will be able to publish under the brand umbrella of France's flagship newspaper - free of charge, of course. The German-language news service of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia (de.wikinews.org) is also free and brand new, where anyone can and should play "Reporterlis".
According to the (established!) US magazine Newsweek, this open information forum functions "like a colony of ants, where the collective intelligence of the whole complements and ultimately supplants the individual contributions". Dan Gillmor would probably agree with this description. It is no coincidence that the well-known Californian columnist adds the grassroots democratic motto "If you don't like the news ... go out and make your own news" to his analysis of a phenomenon that he has long helped to shape (weblog.siliconvalley.com).
some of your own".
Gillmor's knowledgeable portrayal of the journalistic open source movement is also not without a certain activist pathos. Thanks to the differentiation of the essayistic manifesto, however, this is hardly a problem. Unsurprisingly, the eyewitness accounts of the 9/11 catastrophe are cited as the official birth of bottom-up news, when the major TV stations and newspapers first relied on and referred to private internet sources. Since then, there has been controversy as to whether the new "civic media" can only supplement the traditional "big (business) media" or replace it completely at some point. The self-confessed newspaper man considers the latter to be "unlikely, to say the least" due to the Internet's structural credibility deficit.
Against media arroganceFar more important than the anecdote-filled chronology of what Gillmor calls "a self-empowerment of the audience", however, are the resulting cultural, economic and political consequences. The most central one for him and his profession is: readers/viewers/listeners always know more than the journalist. Those who accept this premise are immune to arrogance. But it is precisely this arrogance that has made professional media makers ignorant of the true needs and abilities of end customers.
So far, so plausible. But one question remains: If newspapers are generally regarded as the second hand of history, what are weblogs, newsgroups or chatrooms? Presumably they are both a symbol and a symptom of a further acceleration and banalization of journalism. No wonder some weblogs taste like Big Brother-inspired alphabet soup. Just like at the newsstand or on the remote control, the same applies in the virtual space: not everything is quality, but quality is everything.
> We the media. Grassroots journalism by the
people, for the people by Dan Gillmor. O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol 2004. 299 pages, Fr. 39.90.
Oliver Classen
After the software and music industries, the internet is now democratizing journalism. Anyone reviewing current media coverage will come across more and more examples of the kind of web-based "grassroots journalism" whose program is displayed here. The career of the legendary Dan Rather, for example, recently came to an abrupt end when a few bloggers proved to the CBS anchorman on the Internet that one of his reports on George W. Bush was based on false facts. In the Old World, too, the idea and practice of "grassroots journalism" is enjoying exponentially increasing popularity and - as a result - growing impact. Although Le Monde has recently lost its editor-in-chief, it has also introduced a weblog ranking (www.lemonde.fr/blogs), the top five of which will be able to publish under the brand umbrella of France's flagship newspaper - free of charge, of course. The German-language news service of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia (de.wikinews.org) is also free and brand new, where anyone can and should play "Reporterlis".
According to the (established!) US magazine Newsweek, this open information forum functions "like a colony of ants, where the collective intelligence of the whole complements and ultimately supplants the individual contributions". Dan Gillmor would probably agree with this description. It is no coincidence that the well-known Californian columnist adds the grassroots democratic motto "If you don't like the news ... go out and make your own news" to his analysis of a phenomenon that he has long helped to shape (weblog.siliconvalley.com).
some of your own".
Gillmor's knowledgeable portrayal of the journalistic open source movement is also not without a certain activist pathos. Thanks to the differentiation of the essayistic manifesto, however, this is hardly a problem. Unsurprisingly, the eyewitness accounts of the 9/11 catastrophe are cited as the official birth of bottom-up news, when the major TV stations and newspapers first relied on and referred to private internet sources. Since then, there has been controversy as to whether the new "civic media" can only supplement the traditional "big (business) media" or replace it completely at some point. The self-confessed newspaper man considers the latter to be "unlikely, to say the least" due to the Internet's structural credibility deficit.
Against media arroganceFar more important than the anecdote-filled chronology of what Gillmor calls "a self-empowerment of the audience", however, are the resulting cultural, economic and political consequences. The most central one for him and his profession is: readers/viewers/listeners always know more than the journalist. Those who accept this premise are immune to arrogance. But it is precisely this arrogance that has made professional media makers ignorant of the true needs and abilities of end customers.
So far, so plausible. But one question remains: If newspapers are generally regarded as the second hand of history, what are weblogs, newsgroups or chatrooms? Presumably they are both a symbol and a symptom of a further acceleration and banalization of journalism. No wonder some weblogs taste like Big Brother-inspired alphabet soup. Just like at the newsstand or on the remote control, the same applies in the virtual space: not everything is quality, but quality is everything.
> We the media. Grassroots journalism by the
people, for the people by Dan Gillmor. O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol 2004. 299 pages, Fr. 39.90.
Oliver Classen
