One ragged line

<![CDATA[Dan Gillmor writes about my comments on Dave Winer’s comment that journalists are “totally a part of the story” and that this is a bug in the media.
Unfortunately, the only line that got picked up by Doc Searls and others was: “Bloggers simply haven’t had enough time to fuck up as royally as those who have been granted First Amendment protection for a couple centuries.” Doc knows a marketing line when he sees it and I immediately knew it would require some explaining at some point. Dan found the bug in the line.
Dan writes that this line went “off the rails” and I understand what he means. At the same time, it does encapsulate the critique of journalists by the newly empowered public, anyone of whom can own a press with global reach these days: Journalists aren’t “special” anymore. I’d hoped to make this sentiment clear but didn’t see the right way to say it until Dan’s thoughtful posting about the fact free speech belongs to us all.
So, because no trackbacks from Dan’s posting to my posting seem to have worked, here was what I published in his comments section, where there were a lot of other good ideas from others (go read!):
Dan—I agree with you that we all must protect and practice our free speech, especially in these strange days. However, in the context of my little essay, it is the journalist’s special protection that is changing. It’s not going away, hopefully, but rather is being pushed out to the edges of the citizenry.
Responding to Dave Winer’s broad generalization about “journalists” I hit on something I only see clearly now as I think about your comment about my posting: Journalists suffer today from the perception that they are special, whether it is the public who believe journalists think they are special or journalists who believe they are. Hence, there is a lot of time spent in the blogosphere damning journalists for a conceit—real or imagined.
The power of the press, which with freedom of speech, religion and the right to congregate (protest), is among a very few collective rights identified by the founders, has been insulated from the public by a professionalization that had some very positive and many very negative effects for public discourse. On the positive side, it did establish a practice of objectivity that when practiced humanely produces powerfully useful first drafts of history. On the negative, it elevated journalism as practiced by a growing number of companies into competition with other institutions seeking influence policy; it made journalists “players” in politics and the market who are treated differently than the ordinary public. The result of this elevation—and the way the First Amendment is treated by some, as politicians sometimes wrap themselves in the flag [I should add here that it is the portrayal of journalists, rather than journalists’ legitimate right to protection, that I mean here]—has alienated journalists from the public, whom they serve and, at least in the founder’s time, where part of and not above in any way. The practice (speech or writing) was ordinary, the medium (the press) extraordinary because of its limited availability.
The transition we are going through now with civic journalism/citizens journalism/participatory journalism is a re-democratization of media. If we want to achieve a reintegration of the best practices of journalism with the spirit of democracy, we should not generalize about journalists or bloggers and recognize everyone in this incredible time has the potential to tell a story that transforms our shared consciousness.]]>