There’s been some enjoyable to-and-fro after a Obama campaign donor, Mayhill Fowler, punched the mouth she’s feeding, and made public some unguarded comments uttered by the Presidential hopeful during a fundraiser in San Francisco.
(Brief catchup: read about it all here. Obama said some midwestern voters were “bitter [...] they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them”. This appears to be a controversial thing to say.)
Jay Rosen is the journalism academic behind the section on Huffington Post where Fowler revealed Obama’s comments. He hailed her piece, widely followed-up across the world’s media, as an example of the power of citizen journalism. He also explained why he and editors there left Fowler’s rambling piece unedited, running the good bit right at the end (that was done for context, he said. I do hope the revolution doesn’t continue to be quite this long-winded, even if you accuse me of throwing stones in the glass house that is this blog).
My Guardian colleague Michael Tomasky then weighed in with a thoughtful piece expressing doubts about the ethics of Fowler being present both as a fund raiser and a reporter. A brief excerpt:
“Was she free to write whatever she heard, or was she there with the understanding that she would put the interests of the Obama campaign before the reporting?
[...]
If the old rules are fading away, there have to be a few new ones to take their place. There can’t just be anarchy.”
That was guaranteed to raise the ire of another Guardianista, Jeff Jarvis, who blasted back:
“But what happens when you take away the label journalist and just call the person a witness? Does that person have to live by Tomasky’s rules? Or can that person still tell people what she heard and saw? Isn’t that simply put free speech?
I’m rather appalled that Tomasky also thinks that political candidates of all people ought to be able to benefit from the cloak of secrecy enabled by his rules. He makes it a club and if you violate the club’s rules and report what an elected official said, what happens to you? You get ejected?”
Do read both pieces – they’re more nuanced than my quotes imply.
My gut reaction went with Jeff – while I can see the path to the each-for-his-own journalistic chaos to which Michael alludes, it also seems inevitable. I’m not sure how traditional journalistic rules of engagement (off the record, on the record, scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours) can be enforced when everyone has a camcorder in their pocket, and an easy way to reach millions via WordPress and some Googlejuice. In the reporting of public, or semi-public, or even private events where there are more than a few present, the only battle left is over who does the story best, and gets it up first.
This, then, is less an issue for journalism, more one for political campaigners and masters of spin. Just a few dozen silly words in a campaign of tens of millions of carefully scripted ones can be amplified to a volume far greater than one of those speeches. Thus, tragically, the only logical response is for the candidate to clam up; treat every moment as a moment on Newsnight or Meet The Press.
(There is, of course, another response – to let all the candidate’s prejudices and ill-thought-through half ideas hang out like some kind of… well, blogger – but we, as voters, hardly seem ready to accept such an unvarnished, unairbrushed product.)
The implication of all those could be that, ironically, candor dries up because this is an age when everybody can be a reporter if they want to. Jeff pleads for openness on all sides, yet politicians might move even further in the opposite direction. That’ll be a sad day, and one that will have profound implications for a political reporting machine left with even less to work with.
But, then again, it has long been crazy to imagine that a candidate could push one message to the media, and a less guarded one to semi-public gatherings of friends. This has been the reality for a while now. Call it citizen journalism if you must, but just don’t be surprised a candidate has finally been bitten on the arse by it. I doubt he’ll be the last.
Interesting point. Except of course that if Obama had said nothing interesting then Mayhill Flower would have been quite happy to accept the ‘rules’ of the engagement. Which of us doesn’t worry that they’d sell even their friends out if they said or did something that newsworthy?
I made the suggestion the other day that perhaps a journalists could be defined as ‘simply someone with regular access to a near-private conversation’ – http://outwithabang.wordpress......different/ – the point here being that Mayhill Flower is a perfect example of a world exclusive by a citizen writer, not a citizen journalist. Because if that definition holds true, her ability to have a near-private conversation with Mr Obama regularly in the future is, I suspect, nil.
In the words of Yeatman and Sellars, one view is wrong but romantic, the other right but repulsive.
Neil, as with my previous response…
http://www.completetosh.com/we.....i-complex/
….let me offer what I’ve seen happening on this in the corporate world during my research, as a marker of where this might lead (or is leading) for you. There, where CEOs are very aware that the odd slipped-word internally can suddenly be on the front page of the WSJ the next day and cause the share price to drop and them to have to give back the Learjet by the end of the week, there has long been a guardedness. For the last few years that’s become a paranoia, as open blogs written by employees (e.g., Robert Scoble) have become widespread. As you say, candour has taken a hit precisely because information and publishing capability has become more available.
On the other, there is truly a parallel recognition (worry?) that this is an age where the conversation from leaders (political and corporate) HAS to be different – more down-home, more authentic, more “someone like me” – because the Gen X/Y audience demands it, won’t listen to anything else.
So the paradox is recognised. And yes, the result is that openness from CEOs and senior leaders has become situational and stage-managed, as I think it has in politics.
But if any leader needs to sell 50% “my policies,” 50% “me”, then the first part gets the “official”, formal, carefully-managed communication treatment and the second part (albeit while also often carefully managed) gets the less official, less formal, less guarded approach.
Sensitive policy issues are bled out with a very anus-puckered mindset, with communication protocol rigorously followed and everything even more uptight and diplomatically worded than ever before.
And then the other 50% of the leaders’ kitbag (engaging your audience) is done in the polar opposite format: “Hey, let’s just have a little folksy chat here over a cuppa, I’m just a regular guy like you.”
It works, but leads to the kind of utterly Jekyll & Hyde persona you see in many politicians today (Brown, Blair, Clinton, etc.). And the line to that, I think, can be traced back to this revolution of citizen journalism in recent years – or, at least, it is something that has amplified it hugely.
The sad thing is, Jekyll&Hyde works with the vast majority of the population – if only because they want a leader who seems super-capable and super-dynamic, but also just a little bit like them…
Kieron
Actually Neil, I’m loving your blog – it would be great to interview you briefly for your views on citizen journalism vs real journalism for this international research project I’m doing on the topic. Would be happy to send you a copy of the research in return if you can spare a few minutes to share your expert comments with me over the phone.
You can get me at kieron.shawATgmail