The craftsman as citizen journalist

December 9th, 2008

In the Craftsman by Richard Sennett, he points us to the philosopher Pico della Mirandola, who envisaged Homo Faber to mean “man as his own maker.” Richard Lester and Michael Piore describe the process of (meaningful) as communication as

Fluid, context-dependent, undetermined

Which also links into a Stowe Boyd post

People in a Web 2.0 network are not uniformly connected; some have more connections than others
Connections have directions; the number of inbound connections may far exceed the number of outbound connections, creating an asymmetric environment
This is particularly true of “default-public” networks such as Twitter; Flickr is also likely to evince similar behaviour.

What blogs and connected communities do via the mobile or the internet, or, both is to make available to us, the ability to publish, listen, share, scrape, respond, and, break the hegomony of media and political control – the trend is bigger and more systemic than many realise.

In the great cashcow in the sky, I mused that

the future is about Connectivity, Culture, Community and Commerce. You can’t separate these anymore, without failing commercially. Any media that only has one way broadcast as its business model is going to find it harder and harder to survive.

You might argue that many newspapers have shied away from having a meaningful digital strategy, and have skirted the moral implications of journalism and what this means in this new more permeable and connected world. So its no wonder that the German newspaper Bild is offering a digital camera to potential citizen journalists, who Bild hopes will contribute images to its coverage.

The pocket-sized camera has 2GB of memory, can shoot still pictures and video, and costs €69.99 (£60). It comes with software and a USB port that allows “reader-reporters” to upload content directly to editors who will be assigned to review it for publication.

The Guardian reports that Vancouver-based NowPublic.com gathers photographs, video clips and news tips from the public and distributes them to news organisations. The trend is likely to continue as traditional news providers scramble to match the migration of readers and advertisers to the internet.

Of course the ever present comments on lowering of standards – that accompany citizen journalism, are not far behind. My only comment to that is go and have a look at Current TV or Flickr or iPhoto.

In Propublica versus the grocers, I wrote

Nick Davies in his book Flat Earth News excoriates the owners of newspapers (describing them as Grocers) because their interest its not about community, its not about quality journalism is about one thing and one thing only – MONEY – PROFIT AND SHAREHOLDER RETURN. And that’s all well and good until the quality of the product is so inferior it devalues itself. This is life in a news factory says Davies whilst writing about one journalists experience of working for a local news paper. These are corporations that think greatly about commerce and casually about journalism. This is the heart of modern journalism, the rapid repackaging of largely unchecked second-hand material, much of it designed to service the political or commercial interests of those that provide it.

A final thought, we do live in a world described as being; more connected, more flexible, more permeable, and the people formerly known as the audience have become the media.

We have done a great job in seperating commerce from community, stripping away the glue that binds us together in meaningful ways. In Medieval times village life was described has having high participation levels, but low skill levels. Hence eveyone became part of co-creating the experience, of co-creating the value, they reinforced the bonds of community and belonging. People embrace what they create.

I see no difference here in what citizen journalism offers. The Craftsman is a citizen journalist who can speak the truth to power.

Finally, closed knowledge systems have tended to have short life spans

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