American Journalism is, in fact, a thing.

As I read for my comprehensive exams, I have several burning thoughts about participatory journalism.

It seems that critics of participatory journalism assume that American journalists are able to act independently. Ok sure, freedom is a spectrum, and if you avow yourself to communitarianism it could be argued you’re allowing some of your freedoms to be subsumed for the good of the community or communities into which you place yourself. The current system may be in some ways more free than communitarian journalism, but at what cost? And to whom are we paying?

I would say that you can be deeply involved in a community and still free to act independently, perhaps more free if you actually take stances once in awhile, as long as you are transparent about why you take which positions you take, who pays you, what your past political behavior is, etc.
Comparing Media Systems

Some scholars behave, write, and speak with full throats as though the American system of media production were the only one and if journalists in America could ever be beholden to no one. Hallin and Mancini would say: “NFW; IDTS” Yes, I just inserted a semicolon into my chatspeak.

I don’t understand the assumption that anyone working in the American system is or even could be free from corporate pressures or, to quote J. Herbert Altschull in Mixed News, “Money”. Money’s good, except when it’s not. Phil Griffin and Rupert Murdoch employ quite a few journalists. (Yes, they do.) They also have a tendency to let it be known how they think news should be covered. They both first and foremost agree that news should make them and their corps a lot of money whether it does any good for the citizens of America. It might, but it’s not the primary goal of our media system (duh). I’m talking about how they address their shareholders (Newscorp – NWS; MSNBC – GE). It’s good and it’s bad, but it is, in fact, a system.

It would be crazy to argue that there’s too much money in American Journalism right now. There might not even be enough money to call it “Money” in a few years (worst case), but that’s not my point. American journalists live and work in a media system that puts major constraints on what’s acceptable. This explains why several prominent journalists are questioning Michael Hastings. That’s the stuff that used to get me excited about journalism. But I also know if I pulled that while working for network television (in my dreams, of course), I probably would be out of a job by now.

At any rate, for every Amber Lyon alive and kicking, there are hundreds of ho-hum TV reporters. I know: I pretty much was one.

Participatory journalism isn’t guaranteed to save anybody’s job or to save journalism or Democracy, but it’s something we should teach our journalism kids to be able to do. In addition, we should be willing to teach them about the soup they’re in so none of them will buy the false dichotomy of independence versus community engagement.

“How independent can we be?” “How engaged is too engaged?” I’d rather journalists and future journalists be asking those questions than assuming that independence is full-on possible for anyone but the occasional freelancer and before presuming that the answer to the crushing normalcy of traditional news is complete submission to the community most likely to succeed.

Fans of participatory journalism need to remember it will be much easier to play to the community chambers of commerce than the community of underrepresented Americans if the community itself is your source of support.

I think it was President Obama who said, “This is hard. If it were easy, it would be done already.”

How do we approach community relationships so that we feel free to join, free to report, free to advocate and free to call “Bullshit!” ?

How can journalists approach their communities the way my wife approaches me – with love, respect and a healthy dose of “when you’re wrong, you’re just wrong” ?

From personal experience, as a former average TV reporter, you can be an independent-minded American journalist and get in trouble for covering too many Iraq war protests. You can do your job well and still go home feeling like an idiot. You can work your way up the ladder until you’re not a cog (There are the Amber Lyons out there.), or you might go into academia and demand from a relatively comfortable position that things change.

Demanding is the easy part.

Designing a curriculum to train participatory journalists in a field that doesn’t fully exist yet, and doing meaningful research across borders on identity, engagement and the role of communication and technology in society, well, I guess that’s where I earn my keep.