Howie Kurtz does a good job profiling Mayhill Fowler as well as trying to understand what citizen reporting is all about.
Here's the link.
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12 Responses to “And now, The WaPo Weighs in on Mayhill Fowler”
Just one thought: A lot of Fowler critics have made a big deal out of her cluelessness about where things stood in North Carolina, where she seemed to think the election was very close. I think this underscores that there is still plenty of room for more traditionally “professional” journalists in this game, especially when it comes to comment and analysis–in other words, experience and training still count for a lot, even if some bloggers might find that an elite notion. (That’s why Marc is running this blog and not Woody or reg, for example.) But the mix is clearly changing, and when it comes to newsgathering, especially given the incredible cutbacks in newspaper staffs and the migration of much journalism to the Web, bloggers and amateurs have their rightful place. And when they gain enough experience and credibility, they, too, can find audiences as commentators and analysts. The internet promises to make the so-called “marketplace of ideas” a reality at long last.
Balter, you miss the point about journalism on the web. It’s not so much the subjective quality of the writing as much as it is obtaining information that the MSM has traditionally refused to provide and that the “non-elitists” consider important.
Also, besides the web, consider “talk radio” as a source for news that you would never get from The NYT or CNN. The MSM should quit attacking alternative sources for news and recognize that the shortcomings of the traditional news outlets left a vacuum that was filled by newer means of information distribution.
Michael – I read your post and would have commented there but I can’t remember my google acct password and don’t want to mess with it, but you characterize the link below on Fowler as a “hit piece” while I consider it citizen journalism:
reg, point well taken, perhaps calling it a hit piece is not quite right, but clearly the writer of this TPM post was going after Fowler out of sympathy with Obama. I submit the first paragraph as exhibit A. I will let the reader judge whether this is a balanced piece of journalism, reporting the facts as Fowler has been excoriated for doing, or one with an axe to grind:
By now, most of us know the name of the person who surreptitiously
weaseled her way into a private Obama fund raiser hosted by Alex
Mehran, a wealthy real estate developer and boating enthusiast, and his
companion Carolyn Davis in California, armed with some kind of a
recorder, and walked out with a sound bite that’s created a veritable
shit storm in the political world.”
While I am at it, I want to underscore that the ONLY real reason that Fowler’s reporting from the Obama event drew fire was that it created problems for Obama. Again, no such outcry results from outing the unfortunate words of George Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, etc. To pretend otherwise is the ultimate in hypocrisy, and to pretend that one is defending a principle when one is really defending one’s candidate (or one’s candidacy, in the case of HRC’s championing the voters of Michigan and Florida) is really dishonest.
I was not thrilled with Fowler’s decision (which it turns out was a decision to give into pressure from her editor to come up with as much sizzle as possible and set her position as an Obama partisan – which seems to have been established by her campaign donations – aside in favor of the “rules” of professional journalists, which apparently aren’t really imaginary. ) But that’s about how I define my own interests admittedly, which I have a perfect right to define and which isn’t hypocritical. But Bill Bradley seemed to have a take on it that was based on the “neither-fish-nor-fowler” argument – i.e. as a journalist he had been denied access. Fowler got access as an apparent partisan. Then she used her access as an “insider” to release stuff that the event planners assumed, under the “old rules”, wasn’t for journalistic consumption. Of course, when Fowler had misgivings about printing the stuff she thought would get picked up and used against Obama, her editor clearly imposed the “old rules” of journalistic “objectivity” and non-partisanship on her, guilt-tripping an amateur journalist with her “professional editor’s ethics.” It’s all bullshit if you ask me – the intent was to generate hits for Off-The-Bus. Let’s get real – other than Fowler’s beginners-luck “gotchas” that were pretty much a function of her not being percieved as a journalist in either instance, I don’t know of much else there that was really “competitive” with the pros or “transformative” in any meaningful sense. That editor has great instincts – at least in the Obama case, she clearly functioned as an old-school opportunistic sharpy who played an earnest “citizen-journalist” by touting the “rules.”
Fowler – based on Michael’s link to her column – deserves kudos for her hard work and persistence. Doesn’t mean I have to be a fan, but I don’t want to sound like I have no respect for her following her bliss – as well as putting up with all of the aggravation. But that doesn’t mean I have a duty to be a fan of the particular product.
Michael – I’d say that the person who wrote that TPMCafe piece – which I hadn’t seen and found interesting – was someone with an axe to grind who also reported the facts. Kinda like Todd Purdom and his “hatchet job” – as Ms. Fowler characterized it to Big Dog, who proceeded to lift his leg and pee in her presence.
Woody made a good point when he alluded to the distinction between citizen journalism and subjective, “gonzo” journalism (without using the latter term). The citizen journalist regards the subject of the report from close by, much as a mainstream, credentialed journalist, only without the portfolio and (I’m guessin’) without the pay. The gonzo journalist injects him/herself into the story, so that we learn, for example, what the journalist had for breakfast, what kind of car s/he drives, and the like. Much as I was a big fan of Hunter Thompson’s 1972 coverage, gonzo journalism has infected the whole of contemporary jounalism, though it is far less prevalent, or visible, in the major MSM vehicles.
Gonzo journalism was a reaction, I think, to the sort of “cinquieme etat c’est moi” attitude of Time, Newsweek and the like 30-40 years ago. Now it is the journalistic analog of those bluesy singers who croon around notes without hitting any of them that have come to dominate the American Idolized pop scene. My opinion, as a non-professor of journalism.
June 9th, 2008 at 3:47 am
Just one thought: A lot of Fowler critics have made a big deal out of her cluelessness about where things stood in North Carolina, where she seemed to think the election was very close. I think this underscores that there is still plenty of room for more traditionally “professional” journalists in this game, especially when it comes to comment and analysis–in other words, experience and training still count for a lot, even if some bloggers might find that an elite notion. (That’s why Marc is running this blog and not Woody or reg, for example.) But the mix is clearly changing, and when it comes to newsgathering, especially given the incredible cutbacks in newspaper staffs and the migration of much journalism to the Web, bloggers and amateurs have their rightful place. And when they gain enough experience and credibility, they, too, can find audiences as commentators and analysts. The internet promises to make the so-called “marketplace of ideas” a reality at long last.
June 9th, 2008 at 5:04 am
I expand a bit on these thoughts today on Balter’s Blog, just click my name.
June 9th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Balter, you miss the point about journalism on the web. It’s not so much the subjective quality of the writing as much as it is obtaining information that the MSM has traditionally refused to provide and that the “non-elitists” consider important.
June 9th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Also, besides the web, consider “talk radio” as a source for news that you would never get from The NYT or CNN. The MSM should quit attacking alternative sources for news and recognize that the shortcomings of the traditional news outlets left a vacuum that was filled by newer means of information distribution.
June 9th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Michael – I read your post and would have commented there but I can’t remember my google acct password and don’t want to mess with it, but you characterize the link below on Fowler as a “hit piece” while I consider it citizen journalism:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/04/who-is-mayhill-fowler.php
I guess one of us is a hypocrite…
June 9th, 2008 at 10:34 am
reg, point well taken, perhaps calling it a hit piece is not quite right, but clearly the writer of this TPM post was going after Fowler out of sympathy with Obama. I submit the first paragraph as exhibit A. I will let the reader judge whether this is a balanced piece of journalism, reporting the facts as Fowler has been excoriated for doing, or one with an axe to grind:
By now, most of us know the name of the person who surreptitiously
weaseled her way into a private Obama fund raiser hosted by Alex
Mehran, a wealthy real estate developer and boating enthusiast, and his
companion Carolyn Davis in California, armed with some kind of a
recorder, and walked out with a sound bite that’s created a veritable
shit storm in the political world.”
June 9th, 2008 at 10:41 am
While I am at it, I want to underscore that the ONLY real reason that Fowler’s reporting from the Obama event drew fire was that it created problems for Obama. Again, no such outcry results from outing the unfortunate words of George Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, etc. To pretend otherwise is the ultimate in hypocrisy, and to pretend that one is defending a principle when one is really defending one’s candidate (or one’s candidacy, in the case of HRC’s championing the voters of Michigan and Florida) is really dishonest.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Mayhill speaks for herself”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/running-behind-the-bus_b_105989.html
June 9th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I was not thrilled with Fowler’s decision (which it turns out was a decision to give into pressure from her editor to come up with as much sizzle as possible and set her position as an Obama partisan – which seems to have been established by her campaign donations – aside in favor of the “rules” of professional journalists, which apparently aren’t really imaginary. ) But that’s about how I define my own interests admittedly, which I have a perfect right to define and which isn’t hypocritical. But Bill Bradley seemed to have a take on it that was based on the “neither-fish-nor-fowler” argument – i.e. as a journalist he had been denied access. Fowler got access as an apparent partisan. Then she used her access as an “insider” to release stuff that the event planners assumed, under the “old rules”, wasn’t for journalistic consumption. Of course, when Fowler had misgivings about printing the stuff she thought would get picked up and used against Obama, her editor clearly imposed the “old rules” of journalistic “objectivity” and non-partisanship on her, guilt-tripping an amateur journalist with her “professional editor’s ethics.” It’s all bullshit if you ask me – the intent was to generate hits for Off-The-Bus. Let’s get real – other than Fowler’s beginners-luck “gotchas” that were pretty much a function of her not being percieved as a journalist in either instance, I don’t know of much else there that was really “competitive” with the pros or “transformative” in any meaningful sense. That editor has great instincts – at least in the Obama case, she clearly functioned as an old-school opportunistic sharpy who played an earnest “citizen-journalist” by touting the “rules.”
June 9th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Fowler – based on Michael’s link to her column – deserves kudos for her hard work and persistence. Doesn’t mean I have to be a fan, but I don’t want to sound like I have no respect for her following her bliss – as well as putting up with all of the aggravation. But that doesn’t mean I have a duty to be a fan of the particular product.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Michael – I’d say that the person who wrote that TPMCafe piece – which I hadn’t seen and found interesting – was someone with an axe to grind who also reported the facts. Kinda like Todd Purdom and his “hatchet job” – as Ms. Fowler characterized it to Big Dog, who proceeded to lift his leg and pee in her presence.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Woody made a good point when he alluded to the distinction between citizen journalism and subjective, “gonzo” journalism (without using the latter term). The citizen journalist regards the subject of the report from close by, much as a mainstream, credentialed journalist, only without the portfolio and (I’m guessin’) without the pay. The gonzo journalist injects him/herself into the story, so that we learn, for example, what the journalist had for breakfast, what kind of car s/he drives, and the like. Much as I was a big fan of Hunter Thompson’s 1972 coverage, gonzo journalism has infected the whole of contemporary jounalism, though it is far less prevalent, or visible, in the major MSM vehicles.
Gonzo journalism was a reaction, I think, to the sort of “cinquieme etat c’est moi” attitude of Time, Newsweek and the like 30-40 years ago. Now it is the journalistic analog of those bluesy singers who croon around notes without hitting any of them that have come to dominate the American Idolized pop scene. My opinion, as a non-professor of journalism.