
The new rules of news - bearwithclaws
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/oct/02/dan-gillmor-22-rules-news
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tokenadult
"3. Transparency would be a core element of our journalism. One example of
many: every print article would have an accompanying box called 'Things We
Don't Know,' a list of questions our journalists couldn't answer in their
reporting. TV and radio stories would mention the key unknowns. Whatever the
medium, the organisation's website would include an invitation to the audience
to help fill in the holes, which exist in every story."

That's a very good idea. As a former reporter myself, I have to say that this
is what many conscientious reporters wish they could report, if only the
editors would get over the idea of pretending to be omniscient. And as a
reader of journalism, I think I would like this invitation to be engaged in
each story, raising questions about implicit unanswered questions and
answering questions that were explicitly identified as unanswered.

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michaels0620
It's an interesting list, but I do have a problem with:

"7. We would replace PR-speak and certain Orwellian words and expressions with
more neutral, precise language. If someone we interview misused language, we
would paraphrase instead of using direct quotations."

This encourages the possibility of the reporter introducing their own biases.
Would someone who is against abortion consider "pro choice" as a misuse of
language and replace it with "pro abortion"? Would someone who supports
legalized abortion replace "pro life" with "anti abortion rights".

I think it would be far better to keep the speaker's quotation as is, and
explain separately (in a side bar for instance) why the words used may be
misleading.

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electromagnetic
Journalism is best when it's used as a weapon against both political sides,
it's job is to be in the middle telling the average person these peoples lies.

Pro-lifers _are_ anti-abortion rights, but they don't want people associating
them with anti-rights because it's considered _anti-American_ , they'll be
seen as un-American as terrorists. When a country has free speech enshrouded
in its national constitution, anti-rights _is_ unpatriotic, but pro-life is
seen as patriotic.

These games are already played, I see no problem with journalists playing them
right back against the people trying to subvert media coverage for their own
means.

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mahmud
_Journalism is best when it's used as a weapon against both political sides_

It would then be convenient for someone to manufacture two opposing puppet
causes and run the public through a tight course of fake debate and spectacle,
while real issues are left ignored. You can already see how front-page news
have very little effect on people's lives; death of a celebrity, or a lucky
pet being found at last, etc.

News is dead because news is a commercial product, made, packaged and sold by
the owners of the medium. And with its death, government will loose its
biggest proponent. For the longest time, the papers and broadcast mediums "of
record" have been manufacturing "national unity" and marching people behind
the state; it's thanks to broadcast and print news that most nations of this
world have created their sense of identity. Once this is gone, people will
seek their ideological own and fellow like-minded people across geopolitical
boundaries, and the taxing state will have to justify its continued funding a
little harder.

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jseliger
People have been arguing this for quite a while: I just read and posted about
James Fallows' _Breaking the News_, (see
<http://jseliger.com/2009/10/04/breaking-the-news/> ), which was published in
1996 and yet still feels equally relevant today. Most of Gillmor's suggestions
could have been derived from that book, which leads one to the question: why
haven't things changed?

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rsingel
I am so sick of Dan Gillmor. He was a former working hack who knew the web
pretty well. He tried out his ideas in a startup which crashed and burned
(Bayosphere), but that wasn't enough to convince the world that he's not the
future of journalism. So now he sits in an ivory tower, eating brie paid for
with foundation money, and tells the world how journalism should be. Please,
please someone make him stop.

