After Dr Daniel Meadows lectured to us today I felt like having a tantrum.
Believing, "The age of doing journalism to people is over,"he pioneered BBC Wales's Digital Stories which offers people the opportunity to make a video for the website and possibly the TV or radio.
Excellent though the videos are, I grapple with the thinking behind them. Contra Burton, Dr Meadows said, "I do believe everyone has a story to tell" and he discussed how journalists had to provide people the opportunity to tell them.
Here comes the tantrum ... Why must the journalist give everyone a go? People have stories to tell but surely the journalist is not being elitist if he reserves the right to craft those stories? The surgeon, after all, is not criticised for not handing his knife to a novice.
I put these ideas to Dr Meadows. "I don't want all of media to be constructed out of viewer offerings...There's room for us all in this expanding media world but just now there is an imbalance in favour of media professionals," he said.
He stressed that whilst this inbalance was expected in a profession like medicine, journalism was different. He said, "Journalists claim to represent "the people" and yet they haven't been elected to their jobs. They have just assumed a gatekeeping role for themselves."
Finally, he said, "If you are illiterate or disadvantaged then the choice to become a journalist is not one that is open to you."
That (sort of) told me.
4 comments:
A valid point Jess! It certainly does seem like the journalist has an increasingly sub-ordinate role with the evolution of UGC.
And as someone raised in the lecture today, just because someone has a story to tell, doesn't mean it's a story worth hearing...but then who has the right to judge that?!
My head hurts...
Yeah interesting point of why should we let people in? Hadn't looked at it in such a vitrolic standpoint but I can appreciate where you are coming from.
In all honesty I don't think media will ever be quite as open and 'inclusive' as all these people are telling us. How can it? Most people can't write well let alone go and get stories.
Alexis,
I'm glad that you can see my point. I don't feel that I'm entirely on the defensive. It takes so much training and experience (as we're finding out) to be a good journalist that I genuinely don't believe that it's so obvious that people deserve the right to have a go. That's not to say that many people couldn't be excellent at it but if they haven't chosen to devote themselves to it I'm not sure that natural talent will be enough.
I think that many people do have stories to tell but I think the journalists often needs to be there to make sure that they are told well.
I don't suppose the journalist has a right to decide what a good story is. The audience decides that.
However, I thought it was interesting that Dr Meadows said that it was fine if the digital stories were used selectively. Everyone gets to have their say but then some of them are hushed up. The irony. (see my next post)
Phew what a ramble.
Dan,
I hope that my tantrum comment made it clear that I am quite aware that I'm being vitriolic. I'm glad that you can see that perhaps there is some truth in it though. I hope it isn't mistaken as me just licking my wounds.
I totally agree with your second point. In fact so much so that I'm going to write another post on just that matter...
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