Salon has a very thoughtful piece on the impact of reader input on journalism. It's a good read, and touches on some very important issues regarding the ongoing democratization of the writing process, and what it portends. Gary Kamiya writes in the lead:
But writers have an odd and ambiguous relationship with their readers, and the reader revolution is having massive consequences we can't even foresee. Writers are being pulled, or lured, down from their solitary perches and into the madding throng. This has opened useful debate and made writers accountable. But it has also thrown open the gate to creeps, narcissists and wannabe Byrons who threaten to damage the fragile, half-permeable membrane writers use to keep the world from being too much with them.
And then, after examples of good/bad, this:
The larger issue, however, is the effect of massive feedback itself -- not just abusive feedback, or dumb comments on blogs, but all of it -- on writers. Here we approach the ambiguous heart of the issue. It's ambiguous because a writer's relationship with the imagined readership is itself inherently unstable. Writing is an unstable, hybrid form of communication, at once a soliloquy and a conversation. And the sudden onslaught of responding readers has profoundly changed that relationship, in ways that may improve the communal, two-way aspects of writing but may damage its intimate, meditative and one-way nature. Writers may begin questioning themselves, anticipating criticism, internalizing external pressures -- all things that can be positive but that can also lead to creative paralysis.
Finally, the conclusion:
And yet, it's too easy simply to celebrate the downfall of the elite media and glory in the toppling of the gatekeepers. Yes, they -- we -- could and can be smug and arrogant. Yes, we should be summoned to account when we screw up. And yes, the online revolution has made it easier to do that. But to be part of an elite doesn't mean you're divinely anointed. It simply means you have some aptitude for what you do and have spent years learning to do it, and so you're probably better at it than most people. Not smarter, not a better human being -- just better at your craft. This is true of football players, surgeons, chefs and auto mechanics -- why shouldn't it be true of journalists as well? Forget the word "elite": In our laudable all-American haste to trash bogus royalty, let's not forget there's a completely different category. It's called professionalism.
This is an important discussion and super timely. The signal to noise ratio is increasingly becoming an issue, and finding the gold involves sifting through a ton of sand. I remember back when desktop publishing became big years ago -- looking at the explosion of really badly done newsletters, signs, brochures, I realized that just because somebody *could* design something, it didn't really mean they should, and that professional design was something worth looking for.
I was talking to Neil Charney, director of Windows product development at Microsoft the other day, and he talked about the need to coin a new word -- "value-ize" to capture the idea that in a comment thread the value of a system architect or engineer (or any expert) is seen to be the same in value as the lowest troll who posts next. It's the online equivalent of having work from a Noble Prize poet juxtaposed with a bawdy limerick.
There is huge value in expertise and understanding, and the online world is struggling a bit to come to grips with this -- Wikipedia is on the front lines in working to figure this out. Other groups have implemented rating systems so you can screen (to some extent) for quality postings. But, there's still a long way to go.
I like the way the article closes:
Pro athletes have a saying: "Respect the game." It may be too much to expect the mouse-wielding masses to embrace that credo. But a little respect would go a long way to restoring the heft of the written word, its shape and dignity. And in an age of weightless information, that would be good for readers and writers alike.