TRUTHINESS AND KILLING OFF OF ALL JOURNALISTS: RESPONDING MIKE’S ARTICLE

Mike’s post, TRUTHINESS AND KILLING OFF OF ALL JOURNALISTS, contains various perspectives which I do and don’t agree with. Obviously media industry has been getting more competitive than ever and person who devotes his/her life to be a journalist suffers both morally and financially. This is a professional that you need to wait your day to break in. Unfortunately journalism is ungrateful for many years for high percentage of media workers. Like an artists, painters, sculptors. Also this is true as Mike says: “The resumes read Brown, Columbia, NYU, Georgetown, University of Chicago, etc. Journalists, for the most part, are the sons of doctors and lawyers, the brothers and sisters of stock traders and economists. They fill any individual family’s public service quota. The journalists are among the elite, and if they are not, they soon assume that role.”

This is same all around the world. Alike in my country we have dozens of Journalism Schools in Turkey but graduates work mostly in unrelated work places. Personally I was lucky because I started to work in the field when I was a freshman in collage. Elitism is everywhere. You have to be marketable and well-labeled to be able to get this job. Otherwise you can’t compete with these sons of doctors and lawyers, the brothers and sisters of stock tradersJ)

On the other hand I don’t know why is Journalism so attractive to them? Is that related to money matters or ego satisfaction? I’ve made little research on Google (I still strongly believe that Google is more beneficial and reliable tool for journalist than Wikipedia. Therefore I don’t agree with you Mike at this point) and I found an interesting report on Radio and Television Salary Survey conducted by Ball State University.

I don’t know how much they earn particularly because there is a huge salary cliff between news reporters and anchors. Probably these elitist journalists rather want to be an anchor with the help of their influential affiliations and pedigrees.

Let’s change the topic. I would like to talk about Mike’s point that I can’t agree with. He says: “Then I started thinking about who the historians are – mainly journalists and or academics who all have their own biases. This is not original thinking on my part at all, but I suddenly realized why academics and journalists feel so threatened by the site. It renders them less important. It gives anyone and everyone the ability to not only write history, but to judge it, analyze it, edit it, protest it, manipulate it and emphasize it, just like they do. Journalists are no longer the gatekeepers of all information, and subtle references in their nut graphs (usually the second or third paragraph in the story that explains background and why this story is important) are no longer the accepted background on any given story. The real nut graphs are floating around for everyone and anyone to read.”

He gives examples from Washington Post and New York Times such as Walter Reed Story and other political news. Then he comes with the idea of Wikipedia and tries to approve its preciousness for individuals. He doesn’t give credit to newspapers as much as Wikipedia. I couldn’t understand this point clearly. How could we compare Wikipedia and grassroots media under the terms of telling the truth or doing journalism? They are like apple and pearl to compare. I’m not claiming that media is not questionable. Obviously we are part of this industry and we have a priority to judge it. However we can’t sacrifice whole grassroots media mercilessly for newborn-attractive media figure which is still need to have wide acceptance from all society in the world.

WAR ON THE WEB: RESPONDING JO’S ARTICLE

  “Have blogs been getting an instrument of propaganda?”

I really liked Jo’s open-minded comment in her “Iraq on the web” post. She summarizes not only interesting sides of these blogs but also concealed and worrying parts of war-related videos on these blogs. She thinks that some of the videos by soldiers don’t look like credential and adds:  “In some ways they seem like recruiting propaganda rather than a window into what the war is like for soldiers.”

Back to Jo’s comment about propaganda I’ve made little research on that. In December 2005, The New York Times published an article about the blogs are written by soldiers. (Source:  Wikipedia )

Today we can’t deny blogs’s emerging impact among informative media tools. Many people interested in what soldiers have been doing in their daily lives, which tactics have been used while fighting, how can they survive or how is war atmosphere? The blogs give much more details and variety of sources than print and broadcast media for sure.

Therefore we need to make decision between what we want to know and how much we need to know more. Otherwise we would have a problem with trustworthiness which is one of the biggest problematic issues of our information age.

Furthermore are we questioning how these blogs’s tunes are? Are they becoming propaganda model likewise advertisements and public relations techniques in the past? I think we can not see the whole picture without asking these questions.

Truly blogs have brought more conversation and share to Web World but we need to have our own filter in order to get credible and worthy information among these hundreds blogs.

There are bunch of anti-war and supportive-war blogs on Iraq War. I have linked them on my previous blog entry, titled “Real Time Wars.” You can find extended list of Iraq War blogs here Yahoo Directory.

A Child’s War – a video made in Second Life by Global Kids

REAL-TIME WARS

 The Persian Gulf War was my first televised war. In January 17, 1991, CNN launched reporting from the Gulf. Meanwhile I was 12 years old and first time in my life I was witnessing the term of “Live War”. Every single day we were watching Peter Arnett and Bernard Shaw as others in all around the world. It was quite influential war for my generation because we had never seen the war before this much transparently.

Nearly 10 years later I wrote my graduation thesis on “The War &  Journalism“. How about that? I always think that this is most crucial and uneasy part of journalism. Besides difficulties to gather information under the war conditions you put your life at risk to cover the story. What motives encourage journalist for doing this?

In the collage during my journalism classes what I was thought that there is no particularly Journalist for “War” because Journalists can not be part of the war.

They can’t support wars in order to get more “FAME” or “RATING“. They just report what they have seen and witnessed. However it is always hard to determine fine line between “Doing your job” and “Helping wounded people”.

Reporting America at War is a documentary where we can find chronological development of war reporting and also how the way of reporting has changed in the years. Moreover we can remind what were the most essential rules and characteristics of journalism in the era of war. 

16 years after first heavily-televised war, how much media changed? A lot…Technology has emerged incredibly and now we are not satisfied with televised war anymore. We need to know more and more because we have a power to do that. Altough we have real-time reporting now it isn’t enough because this time we want to get different opinions from different sources. How about real-sources such as real Iraqis? What does it mean real Iraqis? Only Iraqis can pursue us what is really going on there. Isn’t that transformation of news to reality shows? Do we have any expectations like that? If answer is yes why we need a journalist? Did Journalists lose their credibilities?

Journalism essentially requires seeking truth and public enlightenment. In order to do that journalists have to keep neutrality, objectivity, newsworthiness, and minimize harm as much as possible.

If we assume that everything meets with these conditions listed above “Why War on the Web” is so controversial as a new reporting way. Kevin Sites and Blogging Controversy is a key case on that issue. He is long-time experienced veteran war correspondent but he was told to shut down his popular site because he was not legitimate enough.

If we want professional journalist in the field what disturbs us? I think this is not completely related with his journalism skills. The reason of controversy is BLOGGING. Blogging is still suspicious and illegitimate among the majority of journalists and journalism scholars. Paul Grabowicz, the new media program director of Graduate School of Journalism in Berkeley criticizes unedited war blogs and adds: “We are getting into some treacherous water here. If there is not an editor reading before it goes up, it is taking away a safeguard that’s sensible one in journalism-to make sure you get it right before it’s published”. MEDIA: Web logs offer stream of consciousness from the front

Moreover blogging on war not just done by experienced journalist but also students, soldiers, individuals (Iraqis, Americans) as a nature of blogging. You can find wide list of Iraq War Blogs here. Iraq Today

Some war bloggers says that “Only two things we need to have are laptop and satellite phone. We don’t need an editor”.  I think this is the point what we really need to consider it. That is why we can’t count on any bloggers as a journalist. Bloggers also tends to use more casual style of writing. How we can evaluate facts? Is this is a real story or just make up? 

In the sum of these conceptions the answer of “Is seeing and reading about war good thing or bad thing?” question would be “Good Thing” without any doubt. This is amazingly important for public enlightenment; encouraging freedom of speech and press. People can express their feelings and opinions as an opponent of war or supporter of war. We should not have any problem with this part of the contention.

On the other hand  if we are considering every-war related blogs like an example of journalism the answer will be big “NO”.  We do have already enough disinformation in today’s world. People can be deceived through propaganda channels, defemations and inaccurate information. I think how much we are reading or seeing on war is not critical issue at this point. On the contrary I believe we need to determine whether every writings or videos on war has a journalistic value.

TRUTHINESS: RESPONDING JESSICA’S ARTICLE

What a girl…There are so many things in Jessica’s entries. Creative thinking, fair criticism, fun, life, sensation, nostalgia…I like her style because she writes like she talks and catches my attention easily. She is also persuasive because she provides the facts accurately and dauntlessly. I do completely agree with her comments about Wikipedia-Truhtiness dilemma, I’m fascinated with Jessica’s approach to the issue. Let’s remember what she wrote in her entry, The Trouble with Truthiness.

 “My problem with Wikipedia’s devotion to truthiness is that it values heart over fact. It favors what one dream as oppose to what one sees. That’s dangerous because the heart is too abstract to qualify. It’s impulsive. Facts, on the other hand, are tangible and retraceable. ”
I would like to extend the controversy. Thus heart is too abstract to qualify; we can’t prevent subjective and relative information that place in Wikipedia anyway. We have already seen that on Wikiscanner projects. Institutions, companies, people who have some affiliations with them do not hesitate to be supplier of TRUTHINESS.

I do not mean that we have to have kind of dictatorship or censorship to rule on every article we’ve entered or edited. Of course I do not. Wikipedia can remain as an alternate and easy way to reach at practical data-base but it can’t impose like an objective and neutral source.

Moreover this is why newspapers, encyclopedias exits. We need to trust them. Otherwise truthiness term will terminate everything we used to know before. This might seem as an exaggerated chaotic picture but if we do not support grassroots media as much as new media tools I have a sense that we will experience this in early future.

Ok understandable. The both new media tools and grassroots media have pros and cons. Technology has made new media tools more accessible and easier than others. This is not enough to answer my question. How about evaluation, confirmation, news worthiness? I am not talking about seeking truth because in this case it is not that much easy to find what the truth is.

Let’s go back to Jessica’s comment again.
“To say that George Washington did not own slaves is a blatant lie. Of course he did. An infinite number of American white men of means living during the 17th and 18th centuries owned slaves. No offense to wikiality (though that’s a really adorable nick name), but that was reality. It’s not a comfortable reality to recall, but it is reality nonetheless. In denying that, one denies American History as well. More, if facts about slavery can be erased, so can facts about the Holocaust, the Iraq War death toll and Janjaweed militia attacks. Everything becomes subject to web user whim and/or discomfort. That scares me. ”

As she pointed out denying, refurbishing, imposing, propaganda were not easy that much before Wikipedia. Frankly we are forced to accept wikipedia as an ideal way to learn. I don’t have to applaud EVERYTHING that new media brings to our lives.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT “PostGlobal”

 Due to my intense interest in international relations, reading about global issues is almost part of my ordinary life. Though newspapers such as The Washington Post and New York Times have very rich content on International developments, naturally they have limited space to publish every single coverage or article that is related to my interest area.

When I start to look at Washington Post’s blogs, I’ve found Post Global among them. 

“A CONVERSATION ON GLOBAL ISSUES”

In the print edition of Washington Post’s Global Issues Section, you can find only couple of writers. However in Post Global there are 46 bloggers who write particularly on international issues. There are also 33 tags that represent particular regions. Once you click on each of tags you can get related news and entries instantly.

The creators and main bloggers of Post Global describe their blog:

“Post Global is and experiment in global, collaborative journalism, running discussions of important issues among dozens of the world’s best-known editors and writers. It aims to create truly global dialogue, drawing on independent journalists in the countries where news is happening-from China to Iran, from South Africa to Saudi Arabia, from Mexico to India.”

In the light of this aim I think it is very clear what global issues have to be handled journalistically. Many international journalists who work in overseas and columnists contribute to this blog and as a result there is a huge collaboration where various news, articles place on one platform. We do have a chance to see different perspectives and voices. There are very attractive applications such as Global Power Barometer, (GBP) tracks and analyzes thought and actions across the world and frequently catches sight of issues that will impact global politics.

There is also another section called as How the World Sees America contributed by Amar C. Bakshi. He reports from 11 different countries across the world including interviews and pod casts.

In Post Global, they also post questions twice a week and then gather responses from members of their network of experts on one particular issue. The readers of this blog are having a chance to get quick and professional comments on recently important developments in the world. 

This is a real conversation. For instance I’ve seen 259 comments on Amar Bakshi’s post what is titled as “Turkey to U.S.: Drop Your Orientalist Lens.”

 Moreover every single post is linky. If you don’t have background information about current issue you can follow the links that are already pasted to the post. It is like exploring the world. As prospective media leaders at least we need to know what is going on all around the world.  Thus gathering accurate, neutral and variety of information from the world we need to have professional help. I think Post Global is the right address to visit.

In the Post Global, tune, approach and coverage are completely different than Washington Post’s print edition. Unlike Washington Post’s limited pages, Post Global doesn’t have this problem. This reflects negatively on Post’s paper edition. As a result inadequate quantity of articles, lack of diversity and just reading writers’ opinions on one particular issue make me feel more unsatisfied.