Ruhl Lecture: "Participatory Media: Challenges to the Conventions of Journalism"

Here is initial coverage of the Ruhl Lecture at the University of Oregon today. I'll provide more comment and analysis later.

The Internet has opened up possibilities for journalism that several years ago traditional, mainstream journalists never would have considered possible. Citizens are taking the helm and producing news about their communities that doesn’t necessarily conform to what traditional media calls news. The difference is citizen journalism is produced by the “experts” in a community that care about that community.

“Participatory Media: Challenges and Conventions of Journalism” was the topic of Executive Director of J-Lab Jan Schaffer’s lecture at the 32nd annual Ruhl Lecture, presented in conjunction with the Payne Awards Thursday.

J-Lab supports innovations that help citizens participate in public life, and Schaffer drew examples from grant and award winners of J-Lab’s projects to illustrate the effects citizen journalism has had on its communities. She suggested that mainstream media, endangered as it seems to be, should embrace these sorts of Web sites.

“We don’t see many partnerships between mainstream and citizen media,” Schaffer said. “I believe we can figure this out if we just pay attention.”

Schaffer said J-Lab has found community news sites to be responsible, even if creators draw questions about what journalists consider ethical.

“We find (creators) to be literate and passionate about their towns and yearning for a sense of place in their communities,” she said. Several community news sites have become so credible that contributors or creators have been asked to run for public office, something definitely against journalistic ethical creed. Schaffer said citizen journalists have their own set of ethical criteria, and it may be time for mainstream media to rethink what it finds to be ethical as well.

While community sites may report on a meeting where there was consensus, traditional media might think there is no story if there is no controversy, in which case, mainstream media could be seen as instigating or perpetuating controversy in their communities.

“Readers are not keeping score. They don’t really care the about the score day-to day,” she said. “They just want their leaders to address and solve problems.”

Roseburg’s The News-Review Editor Vicki Menard found Schaffer’s comments about hyperlocal sites covering their own communities interesting because Roseburg is surrounded by several small, outlying towns.

“I wonder if that could happen in our area,” she said. Thinking in terms of traditional journalists, it was hard for her to believe citizen sites are run by volunteers. “Citizen just means you really just want to do this for free?”

The talk inspired Menard to consider ways to enhance The News-Review’s newly revamped Web site to provide what Schaffer described as the umbrella mainstream media should offer to their communities.

University School of Journalism and Communication Dean Tim Gleason opened the lecture by saying it is an exciting time be involved in the news and quoted a speech given at the University of Kentucky in April.

John Carroll, former editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader, told University of Kentucky students, “There will be journalism in the future. And the journalism of the future will have tools unlike any imagined by earlier generations.”