The Rise of Open-Source Journalism

Interactive social media is changing our world. If that sounds like too bold a statement, consider this recent news headline/question from Reuters: Is ‘Rathergate’ a Watershed Moment for U.S. Media? Regardless of your answer to that question, it is clear that bloggers are shaking up big media.

Just what exactly is taking place has been described using various labels, e.g., “collective intelligence,” “distributed intelligence,” “swarm smarts,” and the “hive mind.” When the focus turns to political news, partisan sniping and gossip-mongering leave a bad taste and raise serious questions about the integrity of news sources. But there is also a bright side. Dan Gillmor, author of We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, For the People, makes a compelling case for the changing media landscape.

Tomorrow’s news reporting and production will be more of a conversation, or a seminar. The lines will blur between producers and consumers, changing the role of both in ways we’re only beginning to grasp now. The communication network itself will be a medium for everyone’s voice, not just the few who can afford to buy multimillion-dollar printing presses, launch satellites, or win the government’s permission to squat on the public’s airwaves. We the Media, Introduction.

The speed and intensity with which the blogging community advanced the “forged memo” story is evidence of the changing technology that has made personal publishing so accessible. At the same time, technological advances facilitate searching, linking, and tracking of posts--in effect creating an instant and dynamic online community of those with pertinent information. It is this “interactivity” that allows Steven Horwitz to celebrate this new-found “power to the people” and to conclude, “Average Americans, with their knowledge of typewriters, military procedures, or fairly obscure terms like ‘kerning,’ were able to compete with, and effectively neutralize, one of the most powerful organization on the planet.” Perhaps this is, ultimately, the solution to media consolidation.

Related news:
Fact checking web sites, Disinfopedia.org (a wiki sponsored by the Center for Media and Democracy), and factcheck.org, arm consumers with checks and measures to balance the news and spin from government, business, and even big media.

Robert Greenwald, producer/director of the controversial documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, has made the source footage of his interviews available for downloading from The Internet Archive. Greenwald has invited, “other filmmakers to use my material in new and creative ways.” We’ll have to wait and see if this is more than a publicity stunt…but if should be interesting.

Wikipedia announced on September 20th that it has reached 1 million articles, and is adding approximately 2,500 each day.