September 2008 Archives

Although I'm usually the first to complain about "digital gluttony," I was extremely excited about a new take on the Presidential debate. Current TV -- one of the best television channels that no one seems to be talking about -- and Twitter -- an online application for users to broadcast 140-character messages to friends and strangers -- teamed up for what they called "Hack the Debate." [Here's the promo vid created by Current TV]

Hack the Debate was to air live on Current, complete with Twitter users' messages -- known as "tweets" -- that would appear at the bottom of the screen as the candidates debate. This was done to encourage dialogue about the candidates and the topics being discussed.

The Internet was abuzz with the possibilities of this endeavor; Hack the Debate went beyond just a few people talking about the debates in a chat room -- Current was moving the online discussion into a different medium. Television.

There's a thin line between love and hate, as the saying goes, but that thin line -- the one that is often crossed -- goes for a lot of other topics, too.

Take for instance the difference between being satiated by food or stuffing yourself silly. All it takes is that extra bbq wing or cocktail to push you from happy to overstuffed.. and it didn't take much, did it?

Our digital world is much like that today. We hear about the Sarah Palin - Katie Couric interview and "Google it", land at the LA Times "Dish Rag," which links to Sarah Palin stories in the LA Times, which links to Daily Kos, which links to a YouTube video of Sarah Palin in church with her crazy pastor.

Wait. What was I doing again?

Forget about hyper-partisanship. Let's talk about a different kind of hyper: the hyper-journalism of this 2008 Presidential Election.

Journalism has gone beyond being neutral and has found many political journalists waving their pro-Obama or pro-McCain flags everywhere. Not that this is a problem, but political fighting has gone beyond the candidates and into the news arena. Instead of reporting the news, journalists are being drawn into battles of words, quick video edits and blogs.

And it isn't pretty.

Ethical transparency and neutrality issues can come up at the oddest times.

Take for instance a recent visit I took to a friend's wine bar. I had a wonderful time, great food, drinks and service but at the end was implored to "please write about us on Yelp, just don't mention you know us."

Immediately, I bristled at the request. And who wouldn't? Not that I necessarily felt my "journalistic integrity" would be compromised by a nice review on the popular social networking site (which I might have voluntarily written anyway after proclaiming I knew the owners), but I instinctively felt wrong about the deception. Even if we're all anonymous strangers on the internet, I still didn't think it would be right for me to disguise my alliance with the business.

Others didn't agree with me. Sneaking a peek at Yelp, I saw the familiar names of friends crowding Yelp with positive anonymous reviews (which the restaurant definitely earned, but solicited); in the end, I declined to review the bar. I felt that all of those positive reviews would be taken in a negative way if it was ever found out how the reviewers knew the owners.

The role of journalist is dead.

I am a journalist and this scares me. I am also relieved to see this happen. While I still believe in "legacy journalism," I am excited by the prospect of the journalist as a human. The New Journalist writes the straight copy, but can also have an opinion of their own -- even reactions to news events.

We are the picture takers and the news writers, but we are not cruel, emotionless people.

We write the stories, but that doesn't mean we're not affected by what we report. If we report good stories, heartbreaking stories, we go home and lament the world, too.

Yet, this is what we journalists have been billed as: vultures feeding on society for our next story.