Thursday, July 17, 2008

Joshua Marshall-Citizen Journalist

Joshua Micah Marshall does not belong to any traditional news organization. Instead, he has created his own. This, by its very definition, makes him a "citizen journalist".

According to the Columbia Journalism Review, to get to the newsroom of Talking Points Media in lower Manhattan, "you need to visit a pungent block of cut-flower wholesalers on Sixth Avenue, then climb a narrow stairway to an eight-hundred-square-foot suite that might once have been an accountant’s office." This modest space is the home of a news organization that was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the story of the fired U.S. Attorneys to the attention of the public. Outlets, including the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, noticed in January the sudden pattern of U.S. Attorney departures, but only Talking Points gave the matter sustained attention that month.

In February of this past year, Marshall won a George Polk Award for his reporting on this matter. According to the New York Times, his web site, Talking Points Memo, is the first internet only news cite to win the Polk Award.

Marshall uses a style of online reporting that greatly expands the definition of blogging. But he operates a long way from the cliched, commentator on the network news. Since 2000, when he started, Marshall has grown his operation from a one man Blog into a newsroom in Manhattan, with several reporters, including two in Washington. Yet, Marshall does not shy away from the notion of blogging. As he said in the New York Times interview:

“I think of us as journalists; the medium we work in is blogging. We have kind of broken free of the model of discrete articles that have a beginning and end. Instead, there are an ongoing series of dispatches.”

I think it is important to point out that blogging alone does not make a "citizen journalist." Anyone can blog for any reason. A blogger can represent the corporate run media as well as he or she can represent self. What makes a citizen journalist is in the idea that the consumer of the news (whatever that news might be) crosses over and becomes a distributer of that news. In short, the audience member becomes a role player. Josh Marshall fits this definition.

The following video is taken from the website the Veracifier. You will notice in this clip a couple key elements that act to further support the claim that Marshall is a citizen journalist. The first is that he is highlighting and then challenging, as he states, "the mainstream media's dominant narrative." As an outsider, he is very capable and almost obliged to take this position. It is what defines an unaffiliated journalist in many ways (but not always).

You might also notice that Marshall is not and does not have to be completely objective. John McCain in this instance is the crux of his commentary about the media. Marshall does, however, have a self-imposed responsibility to his audience. With that in mind, the subjective statement he is making is supported with factually-based evidence that leads to logical, analytical conclusion(s). His reporting takes on a multi-dimensionality in this regard. This is critical to Marshall's credibility as a journalist as well as what has enabled him to garner the attention of his peers.


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