龜趣來嘻

Worldandnation: Media struggle with demands for transparency

"What is it going to take for the New York Times to live down the dozens of ludicriously flattering editorials about Judy Miller?" Huffington said. (Full disclosure: three of this critic's blog postings have appeared on the Huffington Post). "I think 2005 was the year blogging was really taken seriously by everyone, including the mainstream media. Newspapers that are still fighting that reality are like dinosaurs."

"Authority in an interactive world comes from communicating, not from avoiding communication," said Rosen. "Explaining yourself is not navel-gazing. It's a part of democracy."

客觀新聞已經變成過去式了，不是不重要而是早已淪為路人皆知的騙術。新新聞讓傳統新聞學跌了一跤，不過很快的就被八卦雜誌、小報與月刊吸收，Gonzo（剛左）新聞學充滿奇想與個人情緒，畢竟是地下文化的，為之鼓掌的人再多，新聞學教授也不太敢公然教授，也無法教授。部落格崛起的現象如果真的有所價值，其中之一在於逐漸浮現出的新聞「透明性」：清楚交代寫作者喜歡與不喜歡的，如何接觸採訪對象，如何生產文章，並且，充分對話，認錯與修改。正如Dan Gillmor所說的：「新聞已變成研討課，而非演講課」。

By providing the uncensored, unedited raw data used to assemble a news story, opinion piece, or blog entry, the problems of misquoting, quote truncation, placing quotes out of order to arrive at an unintended meaning, quoting out of context, or manipulating interviews in the interests of a particular agenda could go away.

As an infrastructure choice, podcasting makes sense because it enables  multiple multimedia enclosures to be packaged together for delivery on a subscription basis. A journalist's audience can optionally subscribe to and review some of the material that was used to assemble a story.

This approach obviously can't deliver 100 percent transparency.  The raw material behind a credible story may exist in a variety of media, and there's also the thorny issue of protecting sources.  Also, with no software to make it easy to map quotes to specific locations in a sound or video file, this sort of transparency puts a significant burden on the journalist.

當一個重大的新聞事件被遺漏或未被充分展開，及時性的市民新聞報導無疑是受歡迎的。還有，新聞記者也不應當將市民新聞看作是一個威脅。市民新聞和傳統新聞既不是非此即彼的選擇，也不是你死我活的競爭。它們是互相補充、互相促進、互相競賽。

"Readers are acting in all the standard ways that journalists do in deciding whether to trust someone they don't know," Sifry says. "First, is this person being accountable? Will they reveal who they are, what their name is, who their sources are?"

Jarvis says his call for transparency should be appreciated by a news culture that demands transparency of government officials, politicians, business leaders and celebrities. "It is our turn to open the shades, to reveal our process and prejudice, to engage in the conversation, to join in the community -- to be transparent. Shouldn't we, of all people and professions, be the most transparent?"

Lasica 引用了 Technorati 產品經理，也是 Napsterization.org's blog 主編 Mary Hodder 的說法，來解釋何以某些 blogger 會比一般的新聞記者來得讓人信賴：

1. 擁有利基的專門知識 (niche expertise)
2. 動機透明(Transparency in motives)
3. 程序透明 (Transparency in process)
4. 坦於認錯 (Forthrightness about mistakes)

特別讓我感覺到有趣的是，很多這種不誠實的Blogger，卻又經常批評傳統媒體如何如何之爛，這不是五十步笑百步，而是百步笑五十步。怎麼說呢？傳統媒體是一台龐大的機器，今天記者再有良心、再誠實，他接受廠商招待去吃、去喝、去玩，然後在文章中揭露了這樣的利益交換之後，很抱歉，這樣的揭露在龐大的編輯生產線中，一定會被拿掉，除非是公司政策如此，否則單一個人很難發揮影響力。