Me, Slowly Accepting Social Journalism as the Way Forward
Let me preface this by saying that I love social journalism. I think it's an incredible way for those who are passionate about writing or about a specific topic to get their voice out there and for those who hope to become traditional journalists to hone their skills. Many of my fellow journalism interns got their start on social journalism platforms and many more will spend free time 'freelancing' on social journalism platforms as they try to make the pursuit into a career.
I've seen and heard discussion praising social journalism for many of the reasons I listed above. I agree with the praise - it's a great platform for getting one's voice heard, especially on positions/topics that are often marginalized. But I read quite a bit of social journalism and have spent a bit of time perusing Medium, which can offer great content and incredible writing. But it's a wide spectrum and I'd argue that much of it should not be considered journalism. (I think there's definitely room for an argument here about what defines journalism, what it is and isn't, etc).
Medium does offer journalistic material, but largely features narrative non-fiction and blog-like posts. Other sites like Buzzfeed and HuffPo consider themselves journalistic outlets and feature quite a bit social journalism. I see pros and cons with this. The pros are that they have the social chops to get important stories shared to a wide audience. I imagine in years to come that traditional journalism outlets will have to shift gears and follow the social media models of social/digital journalism outlets in order to stay competitive and relevant.
But as far as cons go, the biggest to me is the creation of content solely to get clicks. Much of what is deemed social journalism these days is simply an algorithm at play to make content as shareable as possible. While I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong that sort of content and I have enjoyed some of the silly lists and posts those outlets put out, I don't think it should be called journalism.
I also wonder if social journalism undermines traditional journalism by creating popular outlets where writers don't get paid/get paid very little because of the moniker 'social?' I wonder about the fairness of this to the writers (as a once fledgling journalist). The market is so saturated right now with writers wanting to write that there may be no other choice than to write for free. (But again, I'm aware that social journalism gives a platform to folks who wouldn't otherwise have one and gives them the potential for higher earnings, so again, I'm of two minds.)
But my curmudgeon-y feelings aside about the value of traditional journalism and/or more creditable social journalism, it certainly seems to be the future. And I can't argue that I don't love having more free, high quality content for me to peruse. One thing I love about digital journalism in general is the ability for users to interact with the content, writer, and each other in ways that never existed in print journalism. It's a great part of the prosumer culture of Web 2.0 and ties right in to crowdsourcing as well. Much of social journalism involves crowdsourcing and I think the same arguments exists as it does with crowdsourcing in general - improving speed of content production and amount of content while potentially sacrificing credibility. But it seems that maybe, as a population, we all have new and wildly different standards about journalistic credibility anyway.
What are your feelings on social journalism? Am I being too harsh in my standards? (Do I need to remind myself again that not everyone is [nor should they be] Woodward and Bernstein?)
I've seen and heard discussion praising social journalism for many of the reasons I listed above. I agree with the praise - it's a great platform for getting one's voice heard, especially on positions/topics that are often marginalized. But I read quite a bit of social journalism and have spent a bit of time perusing Medium, which can offer great content and incredible writing. But it's a wide spectrum and I'd argue that much of it should not be considered journalism. (I think there's definitely room for an argument here about what defines journalism, what it is and isn't, etc).
Medium does offer journalistic material, but largely features narrative non-fiction and blog-like posts. Other sites like Buzzfeed and HuffPo consider themselves journalistic outlets and feature quite a bit social journalism. I see pros and cons with this. The pros are that they have the social chops to get important stories shared to a wide audience. I imagine in years to come that traditional journalism outlets will have to shift gears and follow the social media models of social/digital journalism outlets in order to stay competitive and relevant.
But as far as cons go, the biggest to me is the creation of content solely to get clicks. Much of what is deemed social journalism these days is simply an algorithm at play to make content as shareable as possible. While I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong that sort of content and I have enjoyed some of the silly lists and posts those outlets put out, I don't think it should be called journalism.
I also wonder if social journalism undermines traditional journalism by creating popular outlets where writers don't get paid/get paid very little because of the moniker 'social?' I wonder about the fairness of this to the writers (as a once fledgling journalist). The market is so saturated right now with writers wanting to write that there may be no other choice than to write for free. (But again, I'm aware that social journalism gives a platform to folks who wouldn't otherwise have one and gives them the potential for higher earnings, so again, I'm of two minds.)
But my curmudgeon-y feelings aside about the value of traditional journalism and/or more creditable social journalism, it certainly seems to be the future. And I can't argue that I don't love having more free, high quality content for me to peruse. One thing I love about digital journalism in general is the ability for users to interact with the content, writer, and each other in ways that never existed in print journalism. It's a great part of the prosumer culture of Web 2.0 and ties right in to crowdsourcing as well. Much of social journalism involves crowdsourcing and I think the same arguments exists as it does with crowdsourcing in general - improving speed of content production and amount of content while potentially sacrificing credibility. But it seems that maybe, as a population, we all have new and wildly different standards about journalistic credibility anyway.
What are your feelings on social journalism? Am I being too harsh in my standards? (Do I need to remind myself again that not everyone is [nor should they be] Woodward and Bernstein?)
Not an expert here -- but journalist friends have suggested that the job market has changed drastically due to social journalism, resulting in fewer "reporting" jobs. Jobs are expanding elsewhere, and writing skills are still strongly valued.
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