This is a first for me: I'm blogging from the airport. It's appropriate considering I'm leaving Kansas City (Missouri) after a 4-day college media convention that screamed themes of convergence and the mysterious world of online journalism. (Note of interest: I was in a session with the University of Washington's newspaper advisor, and got to talk to her about their ethical decisions in running a photo of the man who lit himself on fire. Crazy stuff.) And as I sat through sessions about anything from Twitter to using Facebook for community journalism, I couldn't help but wonder if hyper-connectivity is really a good thing.
I realize this sounds like the grandparent argument that everyone is just on their cell phones all the time, and no one talks face to face anymore. And as mass media history will teach you, this "phenomena" and changing trends in media consumption are nothing new. People thought radio was the end of all civilized neighborhoods, for goodness sakes. I guess for me, the lines aren't necessarily drawn at who is allowed to be a journalist, but rather how we will continue to distinguish the personal from the professional. I maintain this blog mainly for personal reasons, and as a rule leave out specifics about my work on The Whitworthian or other publications. Does that mean it's fair game for a reader to point out a bias I hold in the off-chance I report about something I've blogged about?
Facebook is a whole other ballpark. Again, I have to this point kept a Facebook profile for personal reasons. But as co-workers and potential employers scan my pages and updates, do they now get the right to evaluate my professional abilities by my personal proclamations? Newspapers want to know that I can use social networking, but I don't want to have to water down my photo albums or censor wall posts from friends just because I'm worried about how they may be perceived.
This all goes along with the changing roles, and even definitions, of journalists. Anyone with a phone camera can make headlines on CNN these days if they're in the right place at the right time. I just worry that as we spread the roots of journalism into worlds previously considered off limits, the lines of professional and personal get a little too complicated.
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2 comments:
Having sat through many of those same sessions in K.C., I share some of your concerns about connectivity.
Where I work, there's an endless debate about proper usage of FaceBook, privacy, and the right context for community journalism.
The problem is not stopping it (impossible) or even slowing it down. Isn't it more about channeling and identifying it? Particularly as the workplace in general becomes decentralized ...
I think the issue with connectivity is recognizing that it only works as far as your audience trusts and believes in you as a voice for their community. No one is going to share videos or content if they don't think it will be in good hands.
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