It’s time to change my the tagline of my blog. At the end of this post I have my own suggestions. You can skip right to them and leave a comment, but if you want the reason WHY I am changing the tagline to remove the word ‘journalism’ (until further notice) – keep reading.
While in Chicago I had coffee with John Bracken. I started rambling about all things internet/journalism, etc – and I came to explain a phrase that I have been using over and over since 2003.
“What we are seeing now is the most rapid evolution in the ability to exchange information.”
Which is to say: Big-J “Journalism” is not at the heart of what interests me. What I believe in and want to protect and ensure is the “open and honest exchange of information.” I believe that’s what journalism is – and that’s why I have dedicated myself to the industry/craft/ethics of journalism. -But by labeling myself as a ‘journalist’ or practicing ‘journalism’ I feel cornered. That word has lots of connotations. Either because the public has “lost faith in it” or because the definition of journalism is somewhat circular (ie: Journalism is something done by journalists or featured in journalistic publications).
I don’t want to try and define journalism here – but I do know what motivates me. It is the “open and honest exchange of information.” Taking a moment to reflect on that you’ll understand why the tagline “journalism is a process, not a product” has been my personal motto for so long.
But I am no longer satisfied. I don’t think the word “journalism” conveys the mission that spurred me into the field. Let me continue to explain and perhaps you can help me brainstorm.
I first wrote the underlined phrase above while working on my undergraduate honors thesis at U.C. Berkeley. It was a labor of love. If memory serves it was titled “A Re-actualization of Hegal, Information Exchange and a Free Society.” I’m sure my parents were thrilled with how I spent my college education (and their $).
But writing that thesis was very formative for my thinking and lately I’ve been revisiting the themes. So, let’s see if I can give a cliff’s note version, which should explain why I’m changing the tagline of this blog.
- The Narrative (trying to squeeze in 65 pages here)
All of history can be explained as the evolution in the exchange of information.
- In the beginning, we could exchange physical information (celestial objects colliding, exchanging genetic material ….wink wink, physical movement).
- Exchange of cultural information (cave drawings, language, and symbolic objects ie: crowns).
200 years ago if I wanted to get a piece of cultural information to somebody, I was limited by physical constraints. I had to write it down and get that piece of paper into their hands.
- Travel got faster and faster. Soon we could go around the world in one day.
Physical restraints today are meaningless for most cultural information exchange.
- If I want to exchange cultural information with somebody – I can do it instantly and nearly free.
Sci-Fi future…
- Beam me up Scottie!!!! (physical information exchange goes through similar revolution… but this is obviously just me being a nerd).
“Information exchange” alone doesn’t guarantee a free society.
There are systems of abuse.
- Physical abuse: Harm or control (At a personal level this is akin to hitting or locking somebody in a cage).
- Cultural abuse: Lies and censorship.
In other words, I can exchange information that does harm.
The Generational Narrative to Freedom
(This part of the thesis is a little hazy in my memory).
- Every generation needs to have a civic dialog.
- That dialog needs to be “open and honest” in order to ensure freedom. I actually define freedom as the “open and honest exchange of information.” So – it’s a bit tautological.
The Drama of My Thesis (Cue the Violins)
(typical hippie/Marxist U.C. Berkeley thesis).
- I expressed concern that corporate control/consolidation of the media along with advertising were inhibiting the ability of society to engage in an open and honest dialog. The means of communication were being censored and advertisements can hardly be construed as “honest.”
The last chapter of the thesis addressed the Internet
- It was 2004 (pre-Dean campaign). I acknowledged the internet as a potential force to reckon these issues but admitted that it was too early and too vast to explore the idea.
Following the steps of this thesis one can see how I ended up perusing journalism. I basically thought to myself: “Where is there still an open and honest exchange of cultural information?”
That’s why “journalism is a process not a product.
I’ve spent enough time thinking about this phrase. I feel I’ve internalized it and I want to take it one step back, back to my roots, back to what got me here. I didn’t have nostalgia for Woodward and Bernstein. I don’t like hats with cards in them. I’m not even a particularly crafty wordsmith. But I do want to support the open and honest exchange of information.
Anyone with a careful eye may have noticed that my knight news project has gone from being called “Spot Journalism” (as noted on the Knight page) to “Spot Us.” That was a conscious decision not just because it’s a clever name/url – but also I thought labeling this “journalism” would have brought up some of the same confusions I expressed above. I don’t care about that word persay. What I care about is the open and honest exchange of information, as I believe THAT’S what is needed to keep a democracy strong.
I have no idea what should replace it – but here are ideas off the top of my head.
- Digidave | The Information Needs of Society (too close to Knight’s mission statement?)
- Digidave | The Evolution in Information (too vauge?)
- Digidave | Understanding Information Flow (eh….trying to hard)
- Digidave | The Evolution of Information Exchange (too long, jargony?)
- Digidave | How Do We Keep Info Open and Honest (too whiny, mission driven?
Is it necessary to speak about things like information in a tagline?
Clarty and simplicity are great. But so are little thought-provoking phrases.
For instance, my most successful way to explain my own process has been to describe myself as a lumberjack reporter. Cut the tree, slice and treat the paper, create your own ink…Sure, it’s more work. But the payoff is your newspaper can be about anything at all.
I suppose this depends on the audience you’re trying to reach and the picture of yourself you’re trying to convey. I look forward to seeing what you come up with…
You kind of lost me at “All of history can be explained…” but that reductionism is common in undergraduate thesis papers.
I would subtitle the blog not what it is but what you are trying to accomplish by writing it. Try to avoid Blog Titling Mistake #1 (my list) and be overly grandiose, it just makes your visitors roll their eyes when they see it. Be specific, accurate, and down to earth.
I’m pretty skeptical of the whole “journalism as a conversation” idea. A conversation is a mutual, sustained, reciprocal exchange of ideas and I don’t think this is compatible with the demands of journalism.
It reminds me of an ethnography class I was in where the professor really hounded us to form relationships with the individuals whose communities we were studying. I understood and empathized with the sentiment/ethic but when it came down to it, we had to move on to the next assignment and the people we were interacting with (interviewing) were going to stay in their communities. It was hard to maintain those relationships since our participation was temporary while their’s was permanent. If you could stay in touch 6 months after the project was done, that was doing pretty good because you were already on, trying to accomplish your next assignment/study.
I understand the desire to level the playing field, so to speak, but the fact is is that there is a power differential between those reported on and those who report. The subjects of a report have the power of what they choose to reveal to a reporter or researcher but that person has the greater power to shape the representation of the subject and alter how others view them. The best one can do is to use this power as fairly and as ethically as possible and it is dangerous to ignore that it exists.
I’m not saying that this is your position, your post just triggered up old debates I’ve had with colleagues. Many good people want to minimize the fact that they have power that impacts other people’s lives and end up doing more damage than if they accepted it as a part of doing their job.
Damn! I wish I could go back in and edit my comment. I hate typos.
Dave,
I respect what you are doing tremendously so take these comments as a thinking out loud with you.
My first reaction to your post is that you are conceptualizing what you are doing too narrowly. The way you are describing the exchange of information is an ambition that doesn’t nearly capture the interaction, participation, and engagement you bring to the exchange.
I can understand reluctance to stop at journalism-as-conversation, but there’s something here that’s far more than the transmission model of we speak, they listen and get informed. That’s not the way it works in many cases and the Internet is what has helped us understand how to inform AND converse so that the information has context, meaning, and actionability (is that a word?)
It’s the doing of journalism that makes someone a fuller citizen; it’s the immersion in a community problem that makes someone seek information; it’s practicing successful community facilitation that gives information velcro. Traditional journalism is fairly efficient at transmitting information. You are doing something different in making that information collaborative, accessible, grounded, networked. It changes power relationships and opens up possibilities we haven’t had the space to think about for a long time.