Some thoughts on citizen journalism and Mumbai

Oh, what a Thanksgiving break it is proving to be.

As I sit in this oversize chair, looking out of a bay window at the Michigan snow gently drifting from the cold sky and into the gray woods, the world seems so beautiful.

But within, I feel a deep sense of hurt. Mumbai has suffered what Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution calls "a dramatic demonstration that the global jihadist syndicate based in Pakistan is still as deadly as ever."

Nearly 200 innocents have been killed in that warm, hospitable city, which was my home for more than three years in the late 1990s. Many of the victims are tourists, including 19 from foreign nations such as the United States.

The timeless Indian classic, Taittiriya Upanishad, celebrates tourists, or guests, as akin to the gods: Atithi devo bhava. If only terrorists read the classics.

Oh, maybe they do. Just different ones.

As for me, for four days now, I have been a veritable prisoner of hi-def television and hi-res laptop. It has been a high, a somewhat deprecating one. Nostalgia about my own years in the newsroom consumes me: Deadlines, bylines, leads. Those were the days.

The 24-hour news market –– CNN, MSNBC, Fox –– offers live footage punctuated with relays by Indian broadcast journalists Rajdeep Sardesai (CNN-IBN), Barkha Dutt (NDTV), Arnab Goswami (Times Now) and others.

I notice a special place for citizen journalists in the coverage. For instance Dina Mehta is an early interviewee on CNN. Arun Shanbhag finds mention in the New York Times.

And let it be a matter of record: I am now officially a fan of Twitter. At one time Thursday I was counting a hundred "tweets" a minute! All live. All from south Mumbai. All from the heart. (Some from the mind too.)

Twitter's micro-posts, each of 140 characters or less, have intensely reported the action, particularly events at the Taj Mahal Hotel and Leopold Cafe (which used to be, along with Kailash Parbat near Nariman House, my favorite hangout in Colaba), at the Oberoi on Marine Drive, at Cama & Albless Hospital on Mahapalika Marg. I see that Mathew Ingram has declared Twitter to be "a source of journalism." At one time the Indian government is reported to have called for a lull in Twitter's live updates in order to protect the commandos' strategy. As Forbes puts it, Mumbai is "Twitter's moment."

But Twitter is not the only star platform. Vinukumar Ranganathan's shots on Flickr offer some of the finest early pictures from south Mumbai. The bloggers at Mumbai Help offer realtime comments of community, condolence and consolidation. Others, such as Gaurav Mishra, offer aggregations of the best of the blog action.

Then there are the networking sites. Wikipedia's page for the events reminds me of the super-hit toy poodle pup which grows before your very eyes. GroundReport boasts multiple amateur reporters who are paid by the traffic their stories bring. NowPublic, of the "crowd powered media" tag, has some pretty impressive multimedia coverage. So does CNN's iReport ("Unedited. Unfiltered. News.") There are other sorts of victims too: The netizen demand seemed to have crashed Mahalo’s servers Sunday.

Mumbai's bloggers seem to have leaped from the footnotes into the narrative.

I'm no security expert but Mumbai’s terrorist attacks suggest that, in large countries, pursuing national security via centralized command may not serve dense urban areas susceptible to guerrilla tactics. Besides, as Newsweek reports, Mumbai’s authorities clearly “flunked the intelligence test.” Ratan Tata, whose company owns the Taj hotel, says Mumbai has little “crisis infrastructure” in place.

So here’s another thought. Do bloggers byting their observations serve as the eyes and ears of the citizenry? Are bloggers who use their homes as newsrooms, their computers as teleprinters, and the Web as preferred medium, veritably offering themselves up as intelligence assets? If so why not use them as such? After all bloggers constitute, to use Stephen Cooper's lexicon, a “fifth estate” –– which self-respecting blogger considers himself or herself to be merely "audience"? Mumbai's intelligence authorities should seriously consider vetting chosen bloggers for their potential to disseminate information; perhaps just pay closer attention to certain citizen reports which might help preempt future attacks.

If "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," as Jawaharlal Nehru warned seven decades back, then roping in motivated, networked bloggers with a nose for news might be a common sense way to gather intelligence. Besides, doing so might offer an innovative check on state power by substituting the need for any new federal intelligence agency –– who wants more prying, interfering, bureaucracies anyway?

At this time what soothes me is –– strangely –– an analysis Salman Rushdie, the clever writer who survived a death fatwā, offered at Central Michigan last month: “There’s no such thing as security. There are only different levels of insecurity. The moment you accept that, it sets you free.”

Nikhil Moro, Ph.D.

The panel pitch deadline is upon us

A quick reminder that today's when to send in your panel proposal for AEJMC 2009. Please see CCJIG programming lead Mary Beth Callie's call of September 6 below.

Journalism comes full circle with civic/citizen movement

Boston, where AEJMC will convene in 2009, is where it all started 318 years ago.

In Boston, arguably, was America’s earliest journalism practiced. In Boston lived the earliest printer-editors, two Benjamins and two Franklins: Benjamin Harris’ quirky, chatty Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick (1690), of which only one issue was ever published, was a veritable coffeehouse in newsprint. James/Ben Franklin’s wry New-England Courant (1721-23) frequently offered Ben’s pseudonymous byline, “Silence Dogood.”

The early printers were citizens first, community activists second, and editors if at all. They weren't J-school trained in any nuance of reporting, pagination or ethics (why, Ben Franklin published his own letters as if sent by readers).

Their work was not to be measured by Siebert’s theories or Hutchins’ norms.

But in all of American journalism’s history – the Revolution, the penny decades, the Civil War, Pulitzer/Hearst, the muckrakers/Progressives, the age of broadcasting – if successful editors had a common denominator, it was a finger on the readers' pulse.

A function of that finger on the pulse is the reporter’s craving to connect to an audience, to decide the news, to influence public opinion. It's the craving that makes journalism; the rest is literature.

Any surprise there’s a reflection of democracy in journalism?

But does journalism’s quid pro quo with democracy offer a frame to decipher the newspaper industry’s current travails? Perhaps institutionalization shields the journalist from the reader’s pulse? Perhaps pulse journalism can by itself guarantee profits? Or trump sound economics? – even if the one really a subset of the other? If news and advertising are the two sides of a piece of toast which side is buttered? Ah, that last was a joke.

From small-town Lansing State Journal to venerated New York Times, the urban newspaper's holy grail lies in finding a structural cure for falling circulations (ibuprofen won't cure a Migraine).

Can civic/citizen journalism offer that grail?

Look at the expectations. From the Times to CNN, America’s loftiest media organizations are welcoming the obscurest iReporter, the lowliest blogger, for his or her proactive journalism, a phenomenon which J.D. Lasica has classified in some detail. They are clearly trying to touch communities – in a reflection of David Perry’s call to use journalism to enhance social capital, or Buzz Merritt’s cry for a public journalism.

Perry's and Merritt's work, of course, is too famous to elaborate here.

As is Philip Meyer's call for newspapers to focus on a "leadership audience." Or Leonard Witt's pitch for a “representative” journalism, the idea of using not organizational but communal resources to subsidize the cost of journalism. And Jeff Jarvis' now ancient postulate: “Don't give the people control of media, and you will lose.”

Clearly, scholars and journalists alike are feeling a sharp excitement. Inevitably, it seems, America's legacy media must accept that a YouTubization – allowing the collective intelligence of the “former audience” (to use Dan Gillmor's gravid lexicon) to distill the news – is the sexy new way to keep news accurate, cheap and exciting.

Has journalism come full circle from the era of Harris and the Franklins, or what?

Nikhil Moro, Ph.D.

Invitation to join AEJMC panel proposal

Burton St. John of Old Dominion University asked if I would blog the following announcement. Please send any response to Burt by October 7.

"Have you been noticing how mainstream, independent and citizen journalists have been starting to run into more problems with law enforcement? For example, during the St. Paul Republican National Convention, police actively investigated, detained and/or arrested journalists as diverse as an AP photographer, three members of indymedia outlet Democracy Now and citizen journalists from the group Eyewitness Video.

"I am putting together a panel proposal tentatively called 'Law Enforcement and Journalists: Security versus Rights' for next year's AEJMC conference which runs Aug 5-8 in Boston. If you're researching the tensions between law enforcement and the press please feel free to email me (bsaintjo@odu.edu) by October 7. Please provide a short synopsis of your proposed presentation. As a board member of the Civic and Citizen Journalism Group, which would sponsor this panel, I am especially interested in seeing suggested panel items that touch upon what these evolving tensions mean for journalism's assertions of its perceived rights in society today, and what implications the developments may hold for journalism's assertions in the future. -- Dr. Burton St. John III."

Nikhil Moro, Ph.D.

Call for panel proposals for 2009 AEJMC convention in Boston (due by Oct. 15)

6 September 2008

The Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group (CCJIG) invites proposals for engaging panels for the 2009 AEJMC convention in Boston.

Please email your panel proposal to Co-Vice Chair Mary Beth Callie as a Word attachment by October 15.

Past panels have focused on blogging, civic mapping, community conversations, newsroom projects, legal/ethical issues in civic or citizen journalism, using Internet polling, focus groups and other methods in civic reporting, practicing civic and citizen journalism in a multicultural environment, using new technologies, the history/philosophy of civic journalism, and teaching civic and citizen journalism.

The 2008 convention in Chicago continued to hone the direction of the field. Panel proposals for 2009 may address, but are not limited to, the following broad themes:

1. Citizen/civic journalism in the 2008 presidential campaigns

2. Media convergence as a catalyst of citizen journalism

3. Emerging models in practice, sustenance, and teaching of civic/citizen journalism

4. Collective intelligence (crowdsourcing) vs. information gateways ( traditional gatekeeper role of press).

In general, address topics which are relevant to current discussions in journalism, politics, technology, democracy, or philosophy. Panels addressing issues of cultural and racial diversity are encouraged.

Your panel proposal should mention the following components in order: Type (i.e., PF&R, Teaching, Research), a tentative title, a possible moderator, the possible panelists (limit to three so we can work on linking with other interest groups and divisions), a brief description of the panel, and possible co-sponsors (divisions or interest groups). Please follow this format as closely as possible.

Selected proposals are compiled into a single document, with proposals from other divisions and interest groups, in order to be considered for c0-sponsorship and scheduling. Many will later be revised or expanded as part of the joint planning process.

A sample proposal is available at http://www.has.vcu.edu/civic-journalism/Sample_Panel_Proposal.doc

We look forward to your proposals!

Mary Beth Callie, Ph.D.
mcallie@regis.edu
Co-Vice Chair, Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group

Transformation, emergence and norms: The promise of another great year

As CCJIG's incoming head for 2008-09, my big, big welcome to you.

What a year it promises to be! An engaging, and in many ways historic, presidential campaign is upon us. Emerging technologies have gone beyond "disrupting" newsrooms/studios to set norms for journalism practice/assessment. Convergence, of technologies and of skills, is the great new catalyst. Models of sustaining civic and citizen journalism are evolving as quickly as ever. The mass media's buffeting by gales of transformation continues, in business models and in consumer patronage. Journalism programs are increasingly using classrooms to address the pedagogy/practice of civic and citizen journalism. The collective intelligence is taking on traditional gatekeeping roles like never before.

Clearly, our field is growing in several directions all at an unprecedented pace. It is as relevant to democracy, to the media industries, as ever. And, as Sue Ellen Christian's bibliography evidenced, the scholars are catching up. More books, more research, more deliberation. Folks, we have a movement going!

In a day or two CCJIG will publish, on this blog and in other forums, our annual call for panel proposals. Please send your proposal in. Let's plan a stimulating agenda for Boston in 2009, as we did for Chicago in 2008.

As I take charge I would like to express deep gratitude to Jack Rosenberry, the outgoing head, for his captaincy in 2007-08. Jack's eye for detail might make him something of a legend if a history of our group is ever written. I'd like to also acknowledge the other outgoing officers for their enthusiastic service.

Let's keep the conversation going!

Nikhil Moro, Ph.D.
Chair, Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group, 2008-09

Pre-Con Videos Available Online

A video of the pre-convention presentation on the "Past, Present and Future of Civic Journalism," produced by our friends and hosts at Columbia College of Chicago, is now available online. The link to view it is:

http://biverson.blip.tv/#1230293

This presentation was made Tuesday Aug. 5 at Columbia College, and includes three very interesting and informative panels featuring leading scholars in the fields of civic and citizen journalism.

Many thanks once again go to Barbara Iverson, Suzanne McBride and all of the folks at Columbia for their warm welcome and outstanding assistance in making their campus and facilities available to us, and for producing this video.