Questions for Debate

What is journalism?

Journalism is said to be truth, loyalty, verification, independence, and as a result of its independence, a monitor of power; its content will be significant, comprehensive and proportional. Journalism is public criticism. It enhances personal conscience and defends citizen's rights and responsibilities. If that is journalism, how do we get it? How do journalists learn to get better at it? And, what else is journalism, particularly in our local/global times? 

How does journalism change when citizens participate in it? What is conserved?

What could we aim for?

What are the rights and obligations of the media when opening up to citizen journalism for content? What guidance, briefs, reimbursement, and copyright are offered? What leverage does the citizen–journalist have in the valuation of the content publication and its display on multiple content platforms? Is there a charter for the citizen journalist to sign, prior to content publication?

Why do we need journalism? What changes if we don't have it?

What is the role of journalism vs. non-profit reporting from the field? What is the relation

between media and non-profit organizations providing content?

We may help to answer questions that point to a viable future: How can journalism survive in an age of digital media? Must journalism be led by the news, or can it lead? In what proportions should the news dictate the topics of journalism? What is the ratio between cold and hot news? What preparation do the media give to the treatment of predictable topics?

What editorial forms can place in perspective certain geographical zones showing similarities, social phenomena, the relation between industrial worlds and ecological damage, and the dramatic contrast between cities facing radical poverty and “ivory towers”? How should media cover global trade with more transparency? In other words, what should cohabit next to the news coverage?

In the past, the brand recognition and value garnered by old-line media and newspaper properties carried implicit messages about point of view and quality. Is it necessary to reproduce this in digital media? If so, how could that be achieved? If not, what will replace it?

The strength of a media brand is said to depend on its capacity to monitor power. The Internet has changed that dynamic, disseminating information directly to the audience through the open use of search engines. The difficulty today comes in defining who maintains quality content (is the information checked and factual)? When researching Lou Reed’s date of birth, for example, the result generates a long series of differing answers. What reference sources should be double-checked?

The other risk is becoming unable to find valuable and complete data (non-partisan, checked, and updated) on political, social, and cultural issues.

Is there a need for media to feed, check, and regularly update encyclopedic knowledge to serve two requirements of the web, the need for in-depth content (hyperlinks) and the need for current news to support current actions? Or is Wikipedia, as a growing database of information by citizen journalists, the solution—even if it is subject to mistakes or allows contributors to engage in mere self-promotion?

Can constellations of reporters provide flexibility, economy, and integrity

in their work? Does journalism have the vocation to educate and guide an audience in

complex social, cultural, and political issues? If so, what is the business model for that form

of independence, which has disappeared as a source of profit for much of media?

Who reads papers and where (countries, subways)? Is there a correlation between

government support of sources and needs of the citizens in democracies?

Issues to Address

Today's news dictates attention. Being in the media = news [Cf. Chomsky].

Disaster gets more attention than slow-acting but bigger-impact maladies (cancer from smoking, pollution, etc.) What is happening as digital media takes away mindshare?
What are the alternatives?

When liberated from the diktat of the news, is it still the responsibility of the media to cover the entire world in equal proportion? Or is that purely utopian? Is there an imperialist form of news treatment? Is there a fashion to define its importance? How can people be moved by floods in Haiti after they’ve been inundated by coverage of Hurricane Katrina? What are the positive and negative reasons that a country suddenly reaches the news spotlight?

If there’s a niche audience for each type of news, what is the future of online media to specialize, the way the magazine culture in the ‘70s became an alternative to generalist media? Does the ‘90s magazine culture of computer-based design efficiencies afford a parallel to explore? When that happened and photographers stopped being paid to publish by the trendy glossy magazines, did it force them to work for free to build their portfolio and gain visibility?

Can content be syndicated across many sites instead of held captive by one major media property? Can this be done while protecting the provenance, integrity, and intellectual property of its originators, while allowing rich commentary and dialectical conversation?