Journalism Moving Forward, Journalism Staring Backward

Between yesterday and today, two links came across my Facebook homepage that gave some indication how journalism might move forward and what might happen if it keeps staring backward to a Time just about Forgotten...

The first link was to Jay Rosen's announcement of his new journalism experiment BeatBlogging.org--which will attempt to combine reporting and social networking. David Cohn (former Assignment Zero colleague) sums it up nicely:

Beatblogging.org is the third major project of NewAssignment.Net, where we're trying to crack new media cases: pro-am journalism, distributed reporting, collaborative information gathering, blog-style reportage. We think the hyrbid forms are going to be the strongest forms, and this project is a clear test of that proposition. Check out both David and Jay's posts for more...

I've always agreed with both Jay and David on this--that the hybrid forms will eventually be the strongest--because hybrid ways, if managed properly, will get reporters back together with people in positive ways that do not exploit people for the sake of journalism's survival. (Almost forgot to mention OfftheBus, headded by my other Assignment Zero colleague, Amanda Michel, which appears to be going well...)

One of the main reasons that I continue to be supportive of Jay's efforts (as well as the efforts of guys like Dan Gillmor and JD Lasica) is their genuine desires to either listen to or work with people who are occupying this fascinating space we call the Internet. There's none of this trying to make people work with journalists in some kind of intellectual hothouse (or sweatshop, depending on how you want to look at it.) Jay's experiments are always designed to maintain a high ethical standard when it comes to how the two parties--the people and the press--are going to have a constructive and productive dialogue again....

Something that seems to have left journalism as it has more and more insisted on its practitioners having high-level journalism degrees in order to be able to get a position that will afford a decent adult living wage...

Which leads me to the second link, to Dick Feagler's column in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: Journalism can't be learned, it has to be lived....I loved reading these recollections from Mr. Feagle:

When I broke into this racket, more than 40 years ago, we weren't called journalists. We were called newspapermen. Even the women.

Now I hear you can get an advanced degree in journalism. Certainly a master's. Maybe even a Ph.D.

I don't know what they teach at journalism schools; I never went to one. To me, there is only one lesson you need in the trade of journalism: the libel law.

The rest of them - courses in "Ethics in Journalism," for example - are merely navel-gazing. Newspapering is a trade. And, like most trades, you learn it on the job.

Geeze, I love this stuff! I think about all those movies I saw as a kid, where the journalists were gruff, hardworking guys with seriously charming personalities (you had to have one of those in order to make both the mayor and warring city councilmen trust you.) These were guys and gals whom you could run into at the grocery store as much as you could run into them at a fire or accident scene.

But something happened somewhere in the 1970's and '80's--maybe it was Watergate, maybe it was the buying-up of small-town papers by big corporations, I don't know exactly--and we slowly started moving towards professionalizing--with expensive, high-level graduate degrees dominating what used to be seen by many as a "trade"...

As I went along reading Mr. Feagler's piece, I thought he might actually give bloggers a break. But he didn't.

Bloggers. Have they ridden with a candidate in the middle of the night? Have they covered the murder of a young girl lying dead in the grass but looking as if she's sleeping? Have they covered anything?

Well, all I can say to that screed is that it's pretty obvious that Mr. Fiegler doesn't know the many different bloggers that are out there--the ones who've started networks and citizen journalism sites and who have been fighting to get press creds to actually get on that darned bus he's talking about--only that it's often the snobby professionalists he disdains that have erected the "no entrance" barriers to bloggers.

Between Jay's announcement, and Dick's column, the true problems with the condition of journalism smacked me in the face like a cold fish: we can get things to change, but we have to get over the entrenched professionalism of the past 20-odd years that is blocking any sort of innovation and creative thinking that might bubble up from the people--who are the heirs to the trade, not the priesthood, of journalism....

But I fear that might not happen, as the Professional Class of journalists move into positions held by guys like Dick Feagler, and settle themselves in for the long haul.

Or are they?

Over the past year I've found out through my myriad of connections and more connections, that there are groups of mid-level journalists being either downsized or getting disgusted with journalism and moving into academia (or starting their own "citizen" outlets--think about it...you know who I'm talking about...) Some of them are great innovators, who see the writing on the wall with new media and are really striving to teach their students about blogging and the myriad of other tools and tricks out on the Internet--the same tools that help students to socialize with friends may be just the same tools that help them out in their reporting later in their careers.

Then, of course, there are a few curmudgeons, who may see bloggers as the ruination of all journalism, Facebook as a place to keep tabs on their kids and students, and who just might feel that they as former journalists must teach the "masses" (to use Andrew Keen's term) how to make their blogging conform to the standards of journalism...

So, one thing we may all agree on is that the solution to the future of journalism is far from near, but at least there are some brave folks trying new stuff, including some of the "unwashed masses" (who are often former members of the priesthood--if you think about it...) And in this space, there seem to be two paths in journalism right now--one that looks forward to getting reporters back in touch with people, and another that stands still, continuing to block innovation and creativity in order to preserve journalism's ivory-tower professionalization...

So, are you moving forward, or are you standing with your back against the wall, staring backward....

Just my $.02