Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's yet another bit of fevered hand-wringing from a member of the journalistic class. David Hazinski, a former NBC reporter and now professor of journalism, clearly has a furled brow and bunched panties over bloggers being insolent enough to think their views might actually matter and having the poor taste to express those views publicly. He's concerned about "unfettered"citizen journalism and he's got a hot nut to go about fettering it. He starts by creating a big scary straw man:
Supporters of "citizen journalism" argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don't provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn't journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse. The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.
I know of no one who claims that all citizen journalists - i.e. bloggers - provide independent, accurate or reliable information. Most clearly do not and only a fool would believe they do. The quality of what you find on blogs has the same range of reliability and quality as traditional journalism does, from the patently ridiculous to the credible and serious. But I would argue that blogging, at its best, does a considerably better job of reporting on and analyzing complex issues than the newspapers and networks do.
The premise of citizen journalism is that regular people can now collect information and pictures with video cameras and cellphones, and distribute words and images over the Internet. Advocates argue that the acts of collecting and distributing makes these people "journalists." This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a "citizen surgeon" or someone who can read a law book is a "citizen lawyer." Tools are merely that. Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals. Information without journalistic standards is called gossip.
Here's what Hazinski gets wrong: many of those "citizen journalists" are actually experts in their field, not merely experts in "journalism." As the mainstream media, particularly newspapers, continue to downsize you have fewer and fewer reporters covering more and more beats, many if not most of them without any expertise in the subjects they're covering.
Just take the coverage of the courts in the major media, which is nothing short of appalling. Sure, there are a few reporters who cover the courts whose work is good; Jan Crawford Greenburg in the print media is excellent, as is Nina Totenberg on radio and TV. But when a major Supreme Court ruling comes down, you're far more likely to hear serious, credible analysis of the case from Eugene Volokh, Jack Balkin, Stephen Bainbridge or any of a couple dozen other law professors who blog than you are from a reporter with a journalism degree but no background in the law.
The same is most obviously true in science. Just look at how the mainstream media handles new scientific discoveries, by doing little more than reprinting the press release sent out by some university PR flak. Their reporters can't analyze the claims because they generally don't know a damn thing about it. That's why we're treated to a steady stream of "this changes everything we thought we knew about (fill in the blank)" headlines about studies that are mildly interesting at best.
Who is more credible when reporting on a new finding in anthropology, a guy at AP with a bachelor's in journalism who hasn't taken a science class since high school, or John Hawks? Who is more likely to give you an accurate sense of the meaning of new cosmological data, a reporter who spends the rest of his time covering the local little league or Sean Carroll? The answers to those questions should be quite obvious.
I'm not saying there's no value in journalism. I'm learning a great deal from the mentors at the Michigan Messenger, which includes a former CNN reporter and two former newspaper reporters and editors. What they have to teach is valuable. But that's all little more than technique and craft, which is worth very little when it comes to the actual analysis of a complex issue. Journalism is about how best to communicate, but you have to have something worth communicating too.
The rest of his screed is more of the same. Calls for unspecified regulation that simply can't happen. Seriously, Mr. Hazinski, how do you propose controlling what people can write on their own webpages? We have this pesky thing called the first amendment; maybe you've heard of it. And people have a funny way of deciding for themselves what they want to read and what they don't.
The whole time I was reading this guy's ode to self-aggrandizement, I kept having one thought repeat in my head: "I'm a very important person. People are afraid of me. I drive a Dodge Stratus." Get over yourself, Hazinski; you just ain't that important.
Comments
What a sorehead! Not to mention an idiot. What would he say if we replaced "news industry" with the "government" in this sentence: "The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.?"
I wonder if print journalists said the same thing when radio news started, and radio guys said it when TV news started. It seems to me that traditional print journalists would embrace the new medium of the Internets, since it gives everyone freedom of expression and (every reporter's dream) freedom from meddlesome editors and publishers.
Sturgeon's Law says 99% of everything is crap. It's true for blogs as it is for newspapers. Some of us try really hard to make sure our facts are accurate, because our readers will catch inaccuracies right away and publicly deride us for being stupid. Others (like O'Reilly) could care less.
I just heard Colin Powell being interviewed on the BBC this morning about the US freedom of speech. Powell said freedom of speech applies to everything, no matter how outrageous or offensive, and that the Founding Fathers in his words intended our nation to have such contentiousness. Powell said we should give the public credit, and assume they have the intelligence to weed the good information from the bad.
Hazinski needs to learn something from Powell.
Posted by: wheatdogg | December 17, 2007 10:32 AM
Advocates argue that the acts of collecting and distributing makes these people "journalists." This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a "citizen surgeon" or someone who can read a law book is a "citizen lawyer."
Hey, if he's agitating for journalists to form their own guild or "association" to keep the pesky rabble out, by all means he should try. They can set up tests for accreditation and everything - I'd like to see the tests that they come up with to examine whether a journalist has the "education, skill and standards" that supposedly make for a good journalist. There's a first amendment in place in the US that will prevent them from stopping people from writing what they want, but I suppose he could force them to pass a test to be called an "accredited journalist" if he's so afraid of the rabble.
My experience, however, is that people figure out who they can trust based on actual experience with the commentator's "education, skill and standards." And this is true of blogs as much as it is of the "professionals". There are bloggers who have higher standards of accuracy than many of the pundits on the Washington Post's editorial page (and certainly higher standards than the pundits you see on TV). I certainly have come to trust the standards of the science bloggers here at scienceblogs more than I trust the pitifully small amount of science and technology reporting that goes on in my own paper.
If Mr. Hazinski is so concerned about his field, he should try to figure out why people are looking to the blogs to supplement their intake of news coverage. And most of it is supplemental - there are a few blogs that do first-hand journalism (such as TPM), but the ones I've run across are actually run by reporters - people with journalism degrees who worked in the field for major news organizations for a while before striking out on their own.
Posted by: NonyNony | December 17, 2007 10:43 AM
Traditional journalism reaches "credible and serious"? Where?
(Lazy potshot, I know, but somebody had to say it.)
Posted by: Michael Suttkus, II | December 17, 2007 10:48 AM
It's worth pointing out that if the traditional media were doing their freaking jobs, the bloggers wouldn't have such an audience. Instead, they've chosen to be a propaganda outlet and gossip service - and since nature abhors a vacuum, the blogs are taking over the functions of the fourth estate.
Remember, when the nation was founded, the printing press created a public arena of discourse. Almost anyone could print up a pamphlet. It's only been since the advent of radio and television that news reporting has been one-way, from the corporate media conglomerates to the public, with no real forum for discussion. Blogs have the potential of putting the power currently held by the media back into the hands of We the People, and that scares the hell out of the media elites.
Posted by: The Mad Patriot | December 17, 2007 10:50 AM
I find his comments about "controlling" and 'regulating" the flow of information downright chilling....
Posted by: Jennifer Ouellette | December 17, 2007 11:12 AM
Wheatdogg makes a good point. I don't know much about when TV and radio started but when Howard Stern left terrestial radio, there were cries about censoring the shit people pay for. Damn them to hell. I miss Stern.
Posted by: Donna | December 17, 2007 11:12 AM
Ed mentions the courts and science as two fields where the bloggers are outstripping the traditional media. I would say another area is in the coverage of journalism itself. Maybe that's what people like Hazinski are most afraid of. Journalists are being fact-checked like never before.
Posted by: Taz | December 17, 2007 11:40 AM
One other important reason that blogs have become a threat to the quotidians like Mr. Hazinski is that the "media" is mostly a corporate owned entity that, these days, cares more about shareholders than their readers. With each new consolidation effort, quality plummets while "journalists" who are afraid of losing their jobs don't bother doing any stories that may upset an advertiser. Not to mention the fear of being named "unpatriotic."
Posted by: Scott R | December 17, 2007 11:50 AM
There is one thing in Hazinski's screed that I could not agree with more:
Yes indeed. It pains me to see/hear a major news organization start a story by attributing what they're about to report to Drudge or Limbaugh. If I could think of an example from the other side of the aisle I'd give it, but I can't think of one. It seems that even true stories that are tainted with "liberalism" have a hard time finding print or air time.
Posted by: Pieter B | December 17, 2007 1:10 PM
Posted by: Reality Czech | December 17, 2007 1:58 PM
Which demonstrates why some of us might actually need editors, to remind us to check our facts.
I stand corrected.
Posted by: wheatdogg | December 17, 2007 2:27 PM
We now have a communication system that allows everybody to become part of the larger discussion. Even I am able to make a comment. OH NO!
Stifling the comunication of ideas has always been a bad idea. David Hazinski also would have opposed the advent of written language, books, printing press, and the internet. Only he is able to disseminate the truth.
Posted by: dale | December 17, 2007 8:31 PM
What they are afraid of is those bloggers who actually know their stuff and are good at getting it across. See for instance this
I can't remember who it was, but I heard a journalist on the radio years ago who said he was often asked to speak at college schools of journalism, but never asked back. He told them to change their majors and learn something. Journalism is something to be learned on the job, after you know something about science, or politics, or economics, or whatever.
Posted by: BaldApe | December 18, 2007 12:14 PM
Link didn't work. see this:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/12/oh_no_time_magazine_hates_us.php
Posted by: BaldApe | December 18, 2007 12:15 PM
This could almost be a fun game here. Find a comment that appears to be from Larry, look at the initials, and try to find out which Confederate figure he's pretending to be this time...
JBH = John Bell Hood ??
... that's my guess at least... what's my prize?
Posted by: doctorgoo | December 18, 2007 2:06 PM
Larry, when you are gonna understand that, while you do have the right to rant and rave on any topic you want... you do not have the right whatsoever to do so on Ed's blog.
In other words, just because Ed keeps telling the crazies to shut up, doesn't mean that he's being irresponsible with his blog.
Posted by: doctorgoo | December 18, 2007 4:25 PM
More lies from Larry. Censorship of comments on traditional news websites is much more common than on Ed's blog or ScienceBlogs in general. In fact, many large newspapers that allow comments have a "report this comment" button - and enforce it. I've seen more people banned or censored on my hometown papers' sites than all of ScienceBlogs and PT combined.
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | December 18, 2007 5:17 PM
Ah, good ol' Larry, he still doesn't get it. Every single comment he leaves here is deleted the moment I see it. And it always will be. And there's nothing "arbitrary" about that, it's quite purposeful and justified. Fuck off, Larry. And get a fucking clue. You will not be posting here, not now, not ever, no matter how many moronic legal arguments you come up with to justify it.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | December 18, 2007 5:39 PM
many of those "citizen journalists" are actually experts in their field, not merely experts in "journalism."
As a journalist myself, I feel the best journalists are those who are good generalists -- people who have a lot of interests and, most importantly, follow up on them enough to have a grasp of the more complex issues they write about. Most of us aren't specialists at all (even in journalism); but I hope many of us know enough to know where to find the specialists.
Specialist blogs are a great resource that give reporters like me access to far more knowledgable people than I could find in the area I cover (for a small daily paper). As far as I'm concerned, anyone, be they journalists or otherwise, who proposes "unspecified restrictions" on blogs and the Web in general has forgotten the basic principles behind journalism -- the First Amendment and the Freedom of Information. We're supposed to be educating the public, not stifling those who try to, so fact-check away...
Posted by: Gus Steeves | December 18, 2007 9:52 PM
Kevin Vicklund said,
Hogwash. I have seen arbitrary censorship of comments on Panda's Thumb, Uncommon Descent, PZ Myers' Pharyngula, Wesley Elsberrry's Austringer, Reasonable Kansans, Law Blog Metrics, and of course this blog. I used to have a little trouble with AOL forums, but I have never had any problem with traditional news websites.
Maybe those comments that were reported were truly improper -- e.g., maybe they invaded privacy, disparaged people on the basis of race, color, sex, etc., etc.
Anyway, what is your point? That arbitrary censorship of comments is OK if the traditional news websites do it?
Gus Steeves said,
David Hazinski's article nowhere proposes restricting bloggers' freedom of speech.
Posted by: JBH | December 19, 2007 2:38 AM
If the professional media wants to protect themselves from the bloggers, it's easy---just do what the bloggers can't.
Most bloggers have jobs which consume most of their time. The best bloggers bring their expertise to analyze published material, as a consequence, or bring in material from their work (like law/politics/science bloggers often do). As a consequence, bloggers have a huge advantage in the editorial/commentary department.
What professional journalists can do that (most) bloggers cannot is do the stuff that requires full time work---investigative work, international correspondence, finding sources, filing FOIA requests, persuading the reticent to give up information, etc.
Sure, the bloggers might end up writing better commentary than you about what you discover, but the original work will be indispensable.
Posted by: Matthew L. | December 31, 2007 12:41 AM