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Book Reviews
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We the Media: Grassroots journalism by the people, for the people
by Dan Gillmor
(O’Reilly; 2004; $24.95; 300pps.)
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Journalism and technology are colliding, and Dan Gillmor’s “We the Media: Grassroots journalism by the people, for the people” demonstrates how this collision has created enormous potential for positive change in the media. While this definitely is a book on journalism, its intended audience expands far beyond today’s professional journalists. In fact, it is relevant to just about everyone, whom he breaks down into three categories: the journalist, the newsmakers, and the audience.
Journalists need to read this book, for it is their profession that will be changing as more and more people are able to create their own news. The tenure of professional journalists may not soon expire, but they better be willing to change their ways to avoid being left behind.
The newsmakers: politicians, business big shots and so forth need to read this book to learn how to interact with their audience using technology. Gillmor points at the early successes of Howard Dean’s campaign in networking grassroots America as particularly powerful examples of the future’s possibilities.
Audience members, or as Gillmor likes to point out, the potential former audience members, are perhaps the books most important demographic. Average people have long sat on the sidelines while consuming the news handed to them, but today’s technology and the citizen journalism that it enables is well on its way to giving a voice to anyone who has something to say.
Gillmor himself is no stranger to the world of corporate news; he worked as a columnist for the San Jose Mercury News until just last year. Prior to that he was on the payroll of the Detroit Free Press and the Kansas City Times.
Unlike most “professional” journalists, Gillmor has long realized the power that the internet has in changing the news environment. He had a blog on the Mercury’s website for a number of years and has now moved on to form a company, Grassroots Media Inc, which aims to “encourage and enable more citizen-based media.”
Gillmor sees a fundamental flaw in traditional journalism: there is nearly always someone in the audience who knows the story better than the journalist. For the highest quality news, the journalist would be wise to reach out to the audience for help.
Current events constantly evolve, and the author believes the news should reflect that, shifting from today’s lectures aimed at a captive audience to a conversational approach incorporating the vast knowledge of the audience.
Examples of this conversation-developing, helped of course by the latest technological innovations like cell phones that can instantly send messages and photos to the world, are documented within the pages of this book, giving readers both a sense of history and ideas for the future of this exciting movement.
The internet is full of resources that make the publication and consumption of news easier and cheaper than it has ever been, that is, if you have the knowledge of how to use it. If the words RSS, news aggregators, wikis and even blogs are foreign to you, “We the Media” will prove to be a solid introduction.
So what exactly is this book? Well, it is many things: part guidebook to many of the pertinent players in this new world of journalism, part technical manual of the hardware and software being used in this new journalism, even an introduction to the world of copyright and libel laws, and truthfully this description only scratches the surface. The book is thorough enough to be used as a text in a college-level journalism class and, for the good of the students, probably should be.
With the masses of information it contains, one might think it would be an excruciating read, but on the contrary, Gillmor’s writing skill and style make it surprisingly light and enjoyable.
“We the Media” is incredibly well-researched and provides an extensive list of websites of interest to journalist and news-seekers alike.
However, it is not a perfect book; one major flaw is his downplaying of the Indymedia.org network, because Gillmore believes it lacks editorial control. If there was any place where he could have done more research, it is here. The Indymedia network has been on the forefront of grassroots media since its inception.
In the spirit of a new, more open media, Gillmor and his publisher have placed the book in its entirety on the internet for downloading free of charge. Take a look at http://wethemedia.oreilly.com, and while you’re there become part of the story by contributing to the ongoing discussions taking place.
Will the top-down structure of news we have come to know so well in the form of corporate newspapers, magazines, and television outlets be replaced by a new system of audience participation? Well, I am not an optimist and it’s too early to tell, but the methods and ideas described in this book can give it a push in that direction if they arrive in the right hands: yours.
Justin Popov
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