The Great Debate

As promised, I'm reporting in after debating Internet skeptic Andrew Keen this past weekend at The Couchiching Conference, Canada's oldest public policy conference. This year's edition, the 77th, is themed: Knowledge, the New Global Currency, and citizen journalism was on the menu Friday night.

The debate with Keen was interesting. If you want to know more about what he thinks about Internet 2.0 and specifically citizen journalism, read the two stories posted previously on Orato,
Web 2.0 Critic Andrew Keen On The BBC Layoffs and How The Internet And Innocence Kill Culture.

I thought we had a great and spirited exchange. It's been a long time since I've been accused of being a neo-Marxist, which is what Keen called my enthusiasm for journalism by people without credentials, part of a flawed antipathy for authority that Marx himself "was too smart to fall for." Meanwhile, he had what seemed to me an oddly naive romance going with mainstream journalism and its proprietors, including the 21st century's Citizen Kane, Rupert Murdoch.

What follows is the complete, unabridged text of my presentation to the conference. I ran out of time, so I'm including some remarks at the end that I cut short during the presentation. My favorite moment of the night came when I said the the audience: "If you would like meet a citizen journalist, just turn to the person next to you." The response was amazing. What began as a buzz turned into a roar as some of Canada's most distinguished public policy people had fun with the idea of themselves as media, obviously something they've never really thought about until Friday night.

I'd like to hear what you think of my presentation...and what you think of Keen's point of view.
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Why Is Citizen Journalism a Good Thing?

• Three words for citizen journalism: It’s about time. In mainstream media what we call the news has been a one-way conversation for too long.

• The news — it shouts at us; columnists admonish, point the finger, pontificate, and for years the only recourse was the possible inclusion of a few carefully edited letters to the editor column.

• In an effort to capture our increasingly fragmented attention, the news has become increasingly ritualistic, an exercise in panic mongering.

• This one-way conversation has an interesting psychological effect. It challenges us to talk back – with the exception of a few little outlets -- we have to bite our tongues.

• Now this gaggle of infinite monkeys, as Andrew Keen calls us in his book, otherwise known as consumers, bloggers, audience, eyeballs and occasionally people -- have the technology to talk back, and we are, in increasing numbers.

• We have a lot to say after years of pressing our noses to the pane of glass that separates us from the media pulpit – which is why so many of us are grumpy about the media. Years of being talked down to will make you that way.

• We have fresh voices, non-traditional voices, not just the usual suspects. For every Thomas Friedman of the NYT, there’s Your Daily Windbag columnist, that font of conventional wisdom you love to hate in your local newspaper. Now there are literally millions of voices, not all of them infinite monkeys. Variety, you’ll recall, is the spice of life. That was William Cowper by the way. I got that from the Internet so it must be true.

• For what seems like eons, we’ve been limited to what the business, intellectual and political elites have thought to be important or what they believed we should know. When guys like Conrad Black and David Radler own most of the newspapers in Canada, it’s definitely time for a change, and frankly, change came in the nick of time.

• Media capitalism was about to make sure we were all signed, sealed and delivered; then along came the Internet, and now they’re not so sure. I don’t know about you but I’m tickled by the fact that Rupert Murdoch felt compelled to shell out $580 million dollars to buy MySpace and he hasn’t the faintest idea what to do with it.

• Yes, there are all the abuses of freedom Andrew Keen so meticulously chronicles in his book The Cult of the Amateur, as if there were never any abuses of freedom of expression perpetrated by mainstream media, but the solution is not to take it away. The solution is to encourage, nurture, teach, assist, sponsor and, yes, authenticate.

• The Internet gives access to so many more voices: more sources, more perspectives, more ideas, more information, more ways of getting at the truth and yes, more ways to deceive.

• Instead getting a pile of dead trees delivered to my door every morning featuring one stream of information, I go to my home page which is iGoogle, which features thousands of links to thousands of legitimate news sites and blogs.

• Only a confirmed contrarian would go out of his way and point out the abuse of freedom on the Internet and ignore the vast treasure chest information that it has become.

• Millions of people, let’s call the citizen journalists or bloggers or merely participants in online forums and bulletin boards, are sharing their expertise, wisdom, experience, passion on the Internet. In seconds, I can learn from them, how to brew a perfect cup of coffee, how to fix a flat tire on my bike, and yes, how to make a bomb. If I want, I can pray online with other devotees of Islam or Christianity.

• Using tools such as RSS feeds and widgets, we can package that information in ways that suit our purposes. We don’t have to put up with some gatekeeper making decisions about what we can or can’t have access to. For all those who maintain that they can’t find what they’re looking for on the Internet, I must respond, well, just what, exactly are you looking for?

• I subscribe to an online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which is updated daily. I also frequently check Wikipedia and will occasionally compare the two. Wikipedia and Britannica are often in accord, which is not that surprising actually – the same guys are probably writing the entries – but the Apocrypha, you might say, are out there. If I want some one else’s opinion on breast feeding or global warming, all I have to do is google breast feeding or global warming and there’s an army of citizen journalists beavering away to give me the inside scoop, or, of course, the real truth!

• This way, we can through iGoogle and various other aggregators allow information consumers to become better informed…dare I say more knowledgeable...at least differently knowledgeable.

• We can find the news as it is happening, before it has been processed. We are widening the frame, the screen, the scope of life, and we’re even giving Andrew Keen a platform and an audience for his concerns. We can have all the news that fits, and on the Internet, that’s all the news.

• Finally, the public discussion is inclusive. It is not the sole domain of the mavens of the editorial pages, the lecterns, or respectfully, the Couchiching conference. These days, anyone can crash the party, and folks, anyone does. I believe that most of these anyones just want to be heard and many of them have something valuable to say. Those who are intent on disrupting public safety of course should be shown the door…and increasingly they will be.

What’s a Citizen Journalist?

• Look around. Turn to your neighbor and say hi. The odds are great that he or she is a citizen journalist. In fact, for better or worse, a citizen journalist is anyone who wants to be one. There are no exams to pass, no enforced standards, no CCJC…Canadian Citizen Journalism Commission.

• I think it’s for better, as there is a lot of previously untapped knowledge, wisdom, expertise, assistance, empathy, information, and yes, truth that we now have access to, thanks to citizen journalism.

• A lot of people scoff at the idea of the citizen journalist. You wouldn’t go to a citizen dentist or a citizen brain surgeon, they contend. Nor would you want your car fixed by a citizen mechanic, but journalism is different.

• Indeed, there is a profligacy of professional journalism associations, endlessly awarding each other for their outstanding contribution to journalism, but there are no actual standards for professionals. No one ever has to pass the journalistic equivalent or a bar exam. Journalists don’t carry licenses to practice; although perhaps Andrew would like that.

• Basically, journalism is protected by the freedom of speech provisions of the Charter and the US First amendment. Journalism is an open shop because of those freedoms, and I’m not sure I need to make the case that freedom of expression is the cornerstone of democracy at this forum. If I do, let me know, and I’ll see what I can do.

• The citizen journalism web site I work with is called Orato.com. It means I Speak in Latin. And the best stories are those that are told through the experience of the authors. If you live through Hurricane Katrina or 9/11, it gives you a compelling authority, and thanks to the Internet you are empowered to tell your story to the world without a meditator. It’s your story; you tell it.

• My worthy opponent complains frequently about the authenticity and accuracy of citizen journalism, but seems to have no difficulty with celebrity journalists, their hair stiff with product, descending on the victims of hurricane Katrina, or the earthquake in China, or you name the disaster, trying to look both affected and completed unaffected – what else is the hair product and makeup for – by the misery around them.

• "Citizen journalists don’t report! " Andrew Keen declares in his piece on Orato – well, if that other stuff is reporting, I’ll take the heartfelt account of my infinite monkey, than-you.

• On Orato, we have stories by people who have lived through train bombings in India or hid under their desk in their dorms while the Szechwan earthquake struck. We also have people who think they’ve got aliens in their hair, but that’s more interesting than product.

• Experience is a great authenticator…and let’s not ignore all the authentic voices of experience on the Internet, reporting their hearts out, while focusing on the sly hoaxsters and liars that are, unfortunately, numerous.

• Most often, people who feel the need to tell their story don’t need to lie; they may have nothing to gain than to share the enthusiasm for their subject or even to figure out how they feel as they sort it out in the telling.

• Frankly, I find a recent story on our site by a woman who just wanted to shake Barack Obama’s hand and was thrilled because she managed to do so at least as meaningful as a stack of the latest professional political reporting – I learned more about how his message of hope affects the people in the crowd…who in fact will have the final say in the ballot box on November 4th.

• Trisha Baptie is a citizen journalist. An ex-prostitute who covered the Pickton trial for Orato, she stuck at it for a year…brought something new to court reporting…empathy for the victims. Through her eyes and the eyes of fellow volunteer reporter Pauline Van Koll, she helped us understand what it was like to be one of Willie Pickton’s victims, how they were haunted by the evidence presented to the court, how close they were to actually being led to the slaughter at the pig farm.

• When we put out the call for prostitutes to cover the Pickton Trial, there was much eye-rolling and harrumphing in the mainstream media. Someone even expressed the concern that because they weren’t real reporters, somehow they would prejudice the proceeding and cause this monster Pickton to go free. Well, I’m happy to report that the only reporter who violated the media ban was a professional journalist working for the CBC, that estimable corporation for whom I toiled for the better part of a decade.

• The citizen journalist can be an expert witness or an expert friend—someone who’s been through it, has researched the situation thoroughly, and now shares his or her expertise on a daily blog. Once again, I’d advise Andrew to save some of the time he spends looking under virtual rocks and spend some time exploring the teeming shelves of the infinite library (one he deplores in his book—with an erudite reference to Borges) and reap the harvest of meaningful information and knowledge from all those infinite monkeys…or should I say expert friends.

How Do We Know Citizen Journalists are Telling the Truth?

• We don’t, but then we don’t know that professional journalists are telling the truth.

• In fact we know some who aren’t, such as the notorious Jayson Blair, who worked for the New York Times for 4.5 years, wrote 600 articles, many of them made up out of whole cloth.

• My worthy opponent uses Blair as an example of the mainstream media’s ability to correct itself, but let’s not forget Blair worked for the Times for four and half years and filed 600 stories before he was uncovered.

• Add to that list other notorious fakers Stephen Glass, Janet Cooke, and even Mitch Albom, the warm, fuzzy author of Tuesdays With Morrie, who reported on a basketball game he failed to attend.

• Yes, there are lots of fakes, frauds, spammers, scammers, propagandists, lunatics and bores on the Internet. And many of them are professional journalists. it’s the greed for easy money, the quick buck, the lure of anonymity and some of the more venal impulses that cause people to be caught in cyberSatan’s snares. I wonder if Andrew has ever for one moment been tempted by any of the scams cramming his inbox? I think not…and if he hasn’t, why does he think the rest of us are smart enough to avoid the pitfalls?

• As for the so-called cloak of anonymity, someone as tech savvy as Andrew Keen must know that Internet anonymity is a see-through cloak, at best. An expert programmer can identify most anonymous posters in seconds. Significantly, the abuses covered in Andrew’s book are documentable because the imposter’s identity was revealed…and it gets easier to unmask the furtive all the time. These days, on the Internet, everybody knows when you’re a dog…and you better not bark up the wrong tree.

• A little dose of caveat emptor and a little comparative research are all it takes to protect yourself from obvious falsehood.

• And I’m particularly interested that my worthy opponent has a problem with wikipedia. I can’t believe there’s a single item that hasn’t been scrutinized by all the relevant experts in the field, and if there’s one global warming expert who has been penalized for not playing well with others, surely there are still plenty of global warming experts exerting their influence on that part of the site. Certainly, I’ve pored over the Orato entry — it’s in my best interests to do so, and have assiduously tried to ensure its accuracy. I have in fact been warned for trying to input overenthusiastic language, but I’ve worked with the site and am reasonably satisfied with the entry.

• I do not have exclusive domain over the truth — even the truth about Orato.com. The fact that the former Wikipedia supervisor Larry Sanger quit in disgust because he was fed up with all the bickering over citizen editors' ceaseless debate over controls and quality seems to contradict Keen’s concern expressed elsewhere in his book over the apparent lack of controls and quantity.

• Here’s something to consider…accurate, authentic, verified information is premium information. It’s more persuasive, more powerful, so it’s in the best interests of the journalist, amateur or professional, to nail it.

What is Citizen Journalism Doing to Knowledge and Culture

• Making it better, I hope. There’s little doubt that the monkeys are evolving at a pace that’s a little difficult to keep up with. But it’s important to keep a perspective. The concern is that now that I can get free news and music on the Internet, and that if citizen journalists will work for nothing in their spare time, who will need mainstream media. That seems a little overwrought. Local websites alone will earn more than $18 billion in the US, according to Gordon Borrell, a 50 per cent increase over last year –and most of that money will go to media companies that have made the transition from print to online.

• In his book, Andrew says that thanks to the destruction of the music industry’s revenue model, we’ll never see the likes of the Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon or The Beatles Abbey Road again. I’ve got to spend a minute on that… All those moguls crying crocodile tears remind me of the Blue Meanies from another Beatle masterpiece, Yellow Submarine.

• Let’s not forget that John Lennon called the revered second side of Abbey Road a bunch of mystical garbage, so at least one guy wasn’t impressed, but me and my iPod are the happiest cyberinterface on the block.

• I, along with millions of others, am perfectly happy to pay 99 cents a tune to get exactly the music I want whenever I want it. I no longer have to leave big carbon footprints all over the landscape and go to a Virgin record store in a mall, at inconvenient hours, pore through sealed jewel case, try to guess what’s inside, pay 15 bucks and only ever play 23 out of the 12-15 songs on the album. At the same time, I have this handy machine buddy, which will cause Andrew to wring his hands and mutter the word “algorithms” darkly – that suggests other tunes I might like, based on the ones I’ve already bought.

• I started out restoring my favorite tunes – and did I mention this is the fourth or is the fifth time the music industry has caused me to buy the same tunes over again – first vinyl, then 8 track, then cassette, then cd, now digital. I guess I could in clued digital audio tape, which I dabbled in for a bit -- but with the help of my machine buddy I’ve found hundreds of artists and songs I never would have encountered in the old days: marvelously diverse artists such as Iron and Wine and Kathleen Edwards and Zero 7, Anna Nalick, The Be Good Tanyas, John Legend and Macy Gray, to name a few. It’s as if I have my own music adviser; I have the run of the store, and I can play (albeit for 30 seconds) anything I want without having to buy it first.

• If this is the death of culture, bring it on.

• Of course, there are still millions of talented people making beautiful and stirring music, and many of them are marketing it directly on the Internet. Thousands of citizen journalists are reviewing and promoting and posting lyrics and debating furiously as we speak. When Radiohead gave away its latest album on the web before offering it for sale, it might have been a giant loss leader, but I suspect it created many new radiohead fans who will turn up to the concerts and spend millions. If the Rolling Stones can still make money dragging their tired old carcasses onto the stage, I very much doubt the music business, traditionally a refuge of kvetchers, is in serious trouble. It’s just undergoing sea change number 6 …or is that seven.

• And speaking of tired old carcasses, it’s time for this one to wrap up. For every problem that Andrew Keen sees, I see a solution…in fact, Keen himself has touted the evolution of Wikipedia into Larry Sanger’s Citizendium, which features professionals and amateurs working together to bring knowledge into the public forum.

• As a show from old media would put it: The truth is out there. Our means of getting at it are evolving ceaselessly…citizen journalists, or what I prefer to call millions of virtual Baker Street irregulars, will help find it. Frankly, I don’t know if we’ll ever find it, or even if it really exists. In the nano-view, of course, the uncertainty principle applies. But this doesn’t mean we should, all of us together, stop searching for it.

Thanks.