The Sherrod Case & Why Citizen Journalism Sucks
July 22nd, 2010 |
If you haven’t followed the story, USDA official Shirley Sherrod was fired after Fox News* blogger Andrew (not so) Breitbart, in an attempt to make Sherrod appear to be a racist, posted, out of context, a portion of Sherrod’s remarks made at a meeting of the NAACP.
In defense of Sherrod, the NAACP posted the full length video on its site. Farmers (one of Sherrod’s major constituencies) came out in her support. President Obama apologized, and she was quickly offered another position which she is currently considering. (Strange she wasn’t given her old job back.)
Putting agenda ahead of ethics and fairness, Breitbart has yet to offer a credible apology for the embarrassment and damage he deliberately caused Sherrod’s career. Bill O’Reilly issued a watered down apology, citing additional “questions” raised for him by Sherrod’s remarks.
Personally, it makes me long for the days of Harry Reasoner, Walter Cronkite, Bob Woodward and Dan Rather, newspeople who had only one agenda: tell the story as completely and fairly as possible, with reliable sources and verified facts.
From an ethical standpoint, there is no difference between this story and that of Jason Blair, the former New York Times reporter who, according to the Times itself, “fabricated comments…concocted scenes…(and) selected details from photographs to create the impression he had been somewhere or seen someone, when he had not.” The parallel is stunning in fact when you consider the use of technology (Blair cropped photos, Breitbart edited videos) to alter the story. Blair, incidentally, resigned after his misdeeds were made public by the Times. Breitbart charges forwards. Truly, we are in a different era.
So why am I attacking “Citizen Journalism”? Sadly, as news outlets find budgets slashed, and fewer people are taking on more work, the old school journalistic system of checks and balances has been dismantled. Breitbart is, for all intents and purposes, a Citizen Journalist who happens to have the use of a very loud media channel, Fox News.* But he is not burdened by editors, fact checkers, legal considerations, or a journalistic canon of ethics.
Breitbart uses the same tools a blogger writing from home, the office, a cafe, or the student union might use. Blogging software is free and intuitive. Most bloggers write and post what they want with no oversight. Anyone can take a digital photo, and edit it in Photoshop or Picnik, upload it to Flickr (or directly to a blog.) Anyone can take a Flip video or cell phone video and do the same.
Social media has given us an environment that has been Photoshopped in multiple dimensions, causing us to call into question the validity of everything we read, see, hear and watch.
With Citizen Journalism, all of the barriers to entry have been removed. Garrison Keillor said, “when everyone’s a writer, no one is.” It could also be said, “when everyone reports the news, no one is a reporter.”
* Andrew Breitbart is not employed by Fox News. I regret the error in reporting that he was.
Tags: sherrod, breitbart, jason blair, citizen journalism
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I agree that this situation with Sherrod was a disaster, but we can at least learn from it: even those who should know better can be suckered by biased, malicious ‘reporting.’
We all need to take bloggers with a grain (or, in this case, a shakerful) of salt, but is that really such a bad thing? Between the beginning of the Vietnam War and the 1990’s there was a ‘golden age’ of journalism, but even then, was it right to blindly trust in the major news outlets?
I think the answer to this problem is not to pine for the days of yore, but rather to think about how we can educate ourselves, and our children, to be skeptical consumers of media.
And it’s not quite accurate to say there are no legal considerations for bloggers. Sherrod has a pretty decent libel lawsuit if she decides to pursue it.
Comment by John Glass — July 22, 2010 @ 2:04 pm
It wasn’t citizen journalism - it was Fox. That’s as far as you really need to read on this. Fox is notoriously far worse than even Chinese journalism…
Comment by Patricia Mayo — July 22, 2010 @ 2:12 pm
Great insights, John, and I agree with you on most points. My degree is in journalism and we used to make a much bigger deal about ethics, checking facts, verifying sources, etc. in the world of print and broadcast than most online journalists seem to. I do miss that.
Perhaps I could have been clearer on one point. I agree there are legal implications for bloggers, but I also think many bloggers do not consider these implications when deciding what to post.
Comment by joel — July 22, 2010 @ 2:16 pm
Joel, thank you for writing this post. It is unfortunate that the likes of Walter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner (last name apropos), et al aren’t more superfluous in big media for the reasons you state. They offer a good example to perhaps tempering ‘johnny minutemen’ at the ready with a rifle shooting soundbites from the blogosphere. Today’s manic, hype, righteous, and celebrity driven media ‘counselors’ (Including Fox) seem to believe that their role is to stir up the minions, but they do so with little concern for consequence resulting (in my opinion) great risk and peril to the social consciousness (compartmentalization and splitting).
Freedom of the press is paramount and citizen journalism can be powerful in this regard; however, as Erich Fromm and others have made clear, Freedom exists within the boundaries of ‘From’ and ‘To’ (and the old school press establishment spent much effort defining them from multiple points of view including reason, logic, democratic principles, and I dare say Love of Truth - and to speak or act outside these boundaries is certainly possible (and is done with high frequency today) mindless, reckless, and in the case of Andrew Breitbart seemingly malicious.
Comment by Marc Nogle — July 23, 2010 @ 8:40 am
Joel….Fox News didn’t even report on this story until after Sherrod had been fired by the White House…and Brietbart has his own independent website, he is not a Fox News employee or contributor.
Just thought I’d help clear that up.
Hope you’re well.
Terry
Comment by Terry Brown — July 24, 2010 @ 9:49 am
It was NOT Fox News. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT or don’t call yourself a journalist. Fox did not run the story until AFTER she had resigned. Even CNN made that clear. Don’t continually propate LIES or you become what you decry.
Comment by Ron Ross — July 24, 2010 @ 9:50 am
I regret the error and apologize for it, though it is largely irrelevant to the story. I am not a journalist, though I try to maintain high ethical standards, hence my apology the instant I became aware of my error.
I will revise the post to correct this later today.
Comment by joel — July 24, 2010 @ 10:54 am
Interesting that you compare Jason Blair and Andrew Breitbart. Blair, a professional journalist, not only had the bona fides expected of a reporter for the NY Times but also editors who should also share some of the blame for his fabrications making it into print. I don’t think Breitbart would call himself a journalist, citizen or otherwise, but his “reports” have been given weight by the Fox network of “professional journalists”.
(Regarding commenter Ross above: Fox intended to run the story which is why the administration rushed to have Ms. Sherrod resign, giving the story more credibility. Fox enables Breitbart with their continued coverage of his stunts. He could not have peddled this story anywhere else and the fact that Vilsack reacted the way he did made the story ok for the rest of the media to run with it.)
I’m afraid that “buyer beware” also applies to the business of news and information.
The business of news has changed considerably since Walter Cronkiite - indeed CBS never really considered their News division to be a business in the way the media is now a business.
I have a vested stake in the ability of “citizen journalists” to provide accurate news and information. It still needs to be verified and most of what we will publish will not have much consequence beyond those personally involved; nonetheless I don’t think all “citizen journalists” suck any more than I think that all “professional journalists” behave as do those employed by FOX - and to be fair and balanced many of the other media outlets.
Comment by Jim Coffis — July 24, 2010 @ 3:00 pm
Jim you make some excellent points. I oversimplified my premise to make it pithier. The lines (blurred or sharp, real or imagined) between journalist, blogger, and citizen are unclear. I always say that the “wild wild west defense,” the idea that this is a new medium so the rules are unwritten, is a weak defense employed by people who misbehave. In some places the rules may indeed be obvious but this is apparently not one of those places.
Comment by joel — July 30, 2010 @ 10:05 am