Narrative, The Soul of Journalism

This week we had a fantastic speaker at our weekly specialized journalism luncheon, Celeste Freemon, who teaches literary journalism at UC Irvine and is a Senior Fellow for Social Justice/New Media at the USC Institute for Justice and Journalism. She spoke about the relevance of narrative journalism in the digital age. As I listened to Freemon describe the importance of narrative in a time of great change in the media and society, I was moved. In our discussion I found the answer to a question I had been asking myself for some time; how can I have the most impact as a journalist? I believe it is through a combination of the oldest form of story telling and the most cutting edge technology offered by the internet. At Annenberg I've discovered my passion for social justice journalism. I'm interested in how we can use literary tricks to draw the masses into stories they might ordinarily avoid, compelling American's to care more about international news. Narratives ask us to invest in characters. In the case of narrative journalism those characters are real live people. Wouldn't it be great if we could use the techniques of narrative storytelling to mobilize people to act on issues like the genocide in Darfur? Some journalists are doing this, but it takes an investment of time and money to do these types of stories and an experienced, skillful storyteller. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times and Ann Curry of NBC have both done their best to convey the stories of ordinary people in Darfur. Ms. Curry recently accompanied Mr. Kristof to Darfur to report on the ongoing genocide. I found out about this through Krisof's blog, 'On the Ground.' My question is, can citizen journalists really do this type of reporting ... the kind that moves us to tears, that helps us hope, that makes us angry enough or inspired enough to act, or to pressure our government to act? I searched the web for citizen journalism about Darfur -- serious journalism, but I couldn't find any. I expect that's because it's very difficult for someone without the resources and the know-how to do such work. Citizen journalism sites such as Huffington Post simply post links to articles about Darfur. Demotix offers still photos and a short text description of them. This is not storytelling. Compare that to Curry's reports and judge for yourself.

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Citizen Foreign Correspondents?

After a bout with the flu I am now re-joining the bloggosphere. Thanks to our classmate Nikki Usher for sending me a link to Nicholas Kristof's recent blog about a new citizen journalism website where we can all become foreign correspondents. In his blog Kristof introduces us to a site called Demotix. Demotix, which set up shop in January 2009, is essentially an online, international, multimedia, newswire service. The site is named after 'Demotic,' the form of writing used and most easily understood by the man on the street in Alexandrian Egypt in 200 BC. The word Demotic meaning, 'of the people.' The people behind Demotix say they hope to open up journalism to the people in the modern age, just as the demotic script opened up writing in Ancient Egypt. They say they're filling the void left by the death of newspapers and old-fashioned on-the-ground reporting. With only four U.S. newspapers maintaining a foreign desk, they may be onto something. Their goal? To provide a place for anyone -- freelance journalists, citizen journalists, and people who just happen to be at the right place at the right time to upload world news photos and video, search for it and comment on it. The good news for freelancers is that they pay you. It works like this; you retain the copyright, they broker the photos and videos across all platforms for you and then Demotix and you split the fee, 50/50. They say they can get anywhere from $50-$3,000, depending on demand. And if you just happen to get something really hot, like say a great photo of a historic moment, they claim the pay could potentially range into the $100,000.00 range! Demotix also has an interesting blog where they invite people to discuss the pluses and minuses of citizen journalism. I was only down with the flu for about a week, but it feels as if in that short time the fault lines of journalism could have made some massive fundamental shifts. And Demotix might be ahead of the game.