Journalism from the other side
: We’re at the end of a long day at the public journalism session in Toronto; I just gave my summary of what I heard and now Jay Rosen is giving his amazing story of the movement and the day.
Jay says that when he got into this long ago, the key word was “disconnect.” Journalism was disconnected from its audience. Jay and the public journalism movement thought the way to solve that was from within journalism. They tried to get journalists to cover an election from the people’s perspective, not a news perspective. They tried to get journalists to hold town meetings to listen. Jay spent a decade doing that.
But then came citizens’ media and Jay says he suddenly saw it differently: Rather than changing from within, rather than trying to bring journalism closer to people, these new tools brought the people closer to journalism, their journalism as publishers. Not everyone will or should do it. But those who are so inclined now can.
It’s all about enfranchising people.
