David Carr's recent New York Times
article addressed his journey tracing back to the source of a famous photograph posted anonymously online. The photograph, which went viral on websites like Reddit and Gawker, depicted exploding manhole covers in Omaha, Nebraska. Carr's article draws attention to the amazing things that are going on all around the world that are being captured by regular people. These regular people, however, become citizen journalists just by snapping photographs with their cell phones and posting them to sites like Twitter or Instagram. The great irony left from Carr's story is that he was forced to
log off the web and enter into the real world in order to track down the photographer who captured the image that shocked the public online.
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| The photograph that David Carr tracked down, taken from an Omaha apartment building. |
It was especially interesting to hear David Carr, who has become somewhat of an embodiment of mobile media through his constantly-updated Twitter feed and success in embracing the future of news, discuss the importance of breaking away from the Internet in life. As Carr writes, "Shoe leather never looked or smelled so good." Carr appreciates the importance of returning to "real" reporting that used to make up the industry of journalism.
Through his description of the trail he followed to track down the famous photograph, Carr establishes the point that much of the journalism and photography online today is unattributed or unclaimed by an author. The danger in this seems very apparent: people can post just about anything, real or fake, and pass it off to be believed by the masses. It is almost impossible to establish the legitimacy of something when we have no idea where it comes from. Carr seems to agree. He wrote, "But at a time when almost everyone is beyond caring what is real or fake onscreen, knowing that, in this case, someone who is paid to get to the bottom of things did just that is somewhat comforting."
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| -David Carr |
While our class has spent a lot of time reading about and discussing the benefits of citizen journalism, we have spent much less time focusing on the dangers of individuals participating in creating news when they have absolutely no credibility, background, authority, or reason to tell the truth. Here I am again reverting back to the idea of earning your voice a la Kathleen Parker, but I believe that this is one of the cornerstones that must be defined in the changing industry of journalism. The fact that everybody has the
accessibility to create news does not mean that everybody has the
license to do so. I understand the effectiveness of citizen journalism in that it allows reporters to have eyes and ears in places where they are unable to personally report on a scene or event. However, in the end I agree with Carr that there is an irreplaceable importance that "real"reporting brings to America. Being able to trust the people who provide our news is a key factor in maintaining effective journalism in America. We must call for journalists to be held accountable for their words, and we can do so through establishing a criteria to define journalists as a specific group, not the entire public.
