SPJ national update III: AP launches citizen media deal, plus Yahoo and Reuters link pixels, and the "news and schmooze" explosion. The Associated Press and NowPublic.com have agreed to a partnership whereby the AP will use photos, video and news from the web site's "citizen journalists." The Vancouver, Canada-based start-up posts citizens' images and news accounts on the site, along with links to mainstream news sources. In the first phase of the partnership, AP news and photo editors in New York will have the option of using selected content to supplement the work of AP reporters. Meanwhile, Reuters hopes to turn the millions of people with digital cameras and camera phones into photojournalists. Photos and videos submitted will be placed throughout Reuters.com and Yahoo News. Reuters said it will also start to distribute some of the submissions next year to the thousands of print, online and broadcast media outlets that subscribe to its news service. The project is among the most ambitious efforts in what has become known as citizen journalism, attempts by bloggers, start-up local news sites and by global news organizations like CNN and the BBC to see if readers can also become reporters. On Feb. 6, the front page of New West, "a network of online communities" in the Rocky Mountain region, included a link to a photo essay on the Montana Legislature, a chapter from a guest writer's book on pantheism, and a "snowblog" item announcing the death of a famed "avalanche guru." Bankrolled for less than $1 million, New West is in the growing category of hyper-local "citizen media" outlets, places with names like Backfence, H20town and Village Soup, that utilize user-generated content. A study by the University of Maryland's J-Lab calls these sites a "fusion of news and schmooze" that promotes the kind of civic engagement that the mainstream press says it aspires to but has been slow to encourage. More here and here.
SPJ national update IV: Videographer who resisted grand jury sets jail record; and a little Libby. A freelance videographer who refused to assist a grand jury investigation became the longest-jailed journalist in modern American history Feb. 6. Josh Wolf passed Vanessa Leggett, who served 168 days in 2001 and 2002 for refusing to surrender information in a murder case. Wolf, 24, has been in prison since August, with a brief break in September, after refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigation of a 2005 protest in which a police officer was injured and a squad car damaged. Prosecutors want Wolf to give them his raw video, some of which he posted on his web site, as well as testify about the protesters seen on the tape. More here. The number of journalists jailed worldwide increased for the second consecutive year, and one in three is now an internet blogger, online editor or web-based reporter, according to an analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ's annual census found 134 journalists imprisoned on Dec. 1, an increase of nine from 2005. Read the report at cpj.org. ... News organizations praised U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton's decision to release tapes of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's grand jury testimony, saying it would open a window into court proceedings. Federal law supports the public release of evidence presented to a jury, but judges in high-profile cases occasionally have released only written transcripts. "This is a victory for the public's right to know," said Karen Magnuson, president of the Associated Press Managing Editors and editor of the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper in Rochester, N.Y. More here. And when Libby's attorneys asked former New York Times reporter Judith Miller about her spotty memory and former Time reporter Matthew Cooper about his sloppy note-taking and inconsistent handling of confidential sources, it's exactly what journalism groups feared when the trial began. Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar and an instructor at the Poynter Institute journalism center, predicted when the trial started that it would make both government spin doctors and reporters look bad. More here.
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On Writing the First Draft of History
by Susan Tallant
Words are more than ink on paper, audience members were told at the SPJ February meeting. Steve Stockdale, executive director of the Institute of General Semantics and a TCU adjunct professor, explained how words help us understand but if misconstrued can change lives. "Language is like a map, and words are the symbols," he said. "Too often we confuse the word with what it stands for."
And definitions are like history books, but meanings occur in the moment. He gave an example using the word cancer. "We can all agree with the term, but the term takes on new meaning when the doctor reveals the tests are positive. The word has now changed the patient's life forever."
Alfred Korzybski, the man best-remembered for developing the theory of general semantics, recognized the power of words as reflected in his 1933 quote, "Those who rule the symbols, rule us." Thus, journalists are symbol rulers, in Stockdale's view, because the words they say (or write) can cause people to think what they want.
Journalists also serve as honesty brokers, he said, to hold people accountable. "Journalists create all of the reality that the rest of us experience. What we know about current events comes from journalists."
Journalists, Stockdale said, "write the first draft of history." The future is not in print, he added, but the demand for journalism is greater now because of different types of media delivery.
Stockdale created another picture about word play by using the example of Taylor Hess, a 2002 sophomore honors student at L.D. Bell High School, who was suspended for "bringing a weapon to school and threatening students." The weapon was a butter knife that had dropped out of a moving box and fallen into the back of his truck. Because of the misinterpretation of the word weapon, a student's life was almost ruined.
"This kid's life was about to be destroyed," Stockdale said, "because of ink on a piece of paper in Austin."
