Bill Moyers and the Emergence of U.S. Citizen Journalism 
Power of government creates need for investigative news 
 
Ronda Hauben 
  
Bill Moyers is a highly respected professional journalist, an American 
journalist who stands out as one who is willing to speak truth to power, 
even at the risk of losing his job. Moyers has been a journalist since he 
was 15 years old, and yet he considers himself a citizen journalist. After 
an absence of more than two years, Moyers returned to PBS (public 
broadcasting system) on Friday, April 27 with the return of his show the 
"Bill Moyers Journal." (1) 

This initial Friday night program provides a helpful framework to use in 
looking at the nature of citizen journalism and considering what are the 
essential factors needed for citizen journalism to develop in the U.S.

Often citizen journalism has been referred to as a journalism of 
"amateurs" as opposed to "professionals," as two prominent Columbia 
Journalism School professionals Samuel Freedman (2) and Nicholas Leeman 
(3) have argued, or as a journalism of those "who lack training as 
journalists" in contrast to those who are "trained journalists," as a 
recent article in LinuxInsider proposes. (4)

The origin and development of citizen journalism presents the basis for a 
very different model, however. The basis is for a collaboration of 
journalists as a Fourth Estate, and of citizens who are concerned with 
overseeing what government does so as to monitor the use and abuse of 
power.

The concept of citizen journalism was first popularized by the Korean 
online newspaper OhmyNews. When OhmyNews was started in February 2000, it 
was with the goal of transforming the conservative domination of the media 
landscape in South Korea. Oh Yeon-ho, the founder and CEO of OhmyNews, had 
worked as a journalist for the progressive publication "Mal" for the 
previous decade. His experience taught him that even when he wrote a 
significant story, it received little attention. When one of the 
conservative newspapers in South Korea covered a comparable story, 
however, other conservative news media provided coverage, so the story 
received serious attention. In starting OhmyNews, Oh was determined to 
bring about a change in the media environment in South Korea so that "'the 
quality of news determined whether it won or lost,' not the power and 
prestige of the media organization that printed the article." (5)

The creation of OhmyNews originally took the form of a media organization 
with a small staff of reporters and editors who focused on covering a 
carefully chosen but limited set of stories. With the concept "every 
citizen is a reporter," however, readers were invited to submit articles, 
many of which were included as part of the OhmyNews publication. The 
writers whose articles appeared in OhmyNews were paid a small fee. Since 
then OhmyNews has grown substantially. The question is raised whether 
there is any similar development growing up in the U.S. In order to answer 
the question, it is important to determine the necessary characteristics 
for a media to be called "citizen journalism."

On the first regular episode of the Bill Moyers Journal, Moyers invited 
Jon Stewart and Josh Marshall as his guests. Stewart insists he isn't a 
journalist though Moyers differs. Stewart's program "The Daily Show" which 
appears on cable television, is considered by many of his devoted fans to 
be closer to what is "news" than the majority of programs which call 
themselves news or news media. Stewart, however, describes his show as 
close to "an editorial cartoon."

On his initial Friday evening show, Moyers played some clips from a recent 
Daily Show. One clip was an extract from the testimony presented to the 
U.S. congress by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The clip showed 
Gonzales claiming "I can't recall" in many different instances in response 
to nearly all the questions he was asked by the congress. Stewart comments 
that at first he didn't understand what the significance was of Gonzales' 
response. Eventually, however, he began to think he had figured out what 
it represented. Describing the motives of those in the Bush 
administration, he says: (6)

"They would rather us believe them to be wildly incompetent and 
inarticulate than to let us know anything about how they operate. And so, 
they do constitutionally-mandated things most of the time, but they don't 
-- they fulfill the letter of their obligation to checks and balances, but 
not the intent."

Stewart is commenting on why Gonzales' testimony on April 19, 2007 to the 
U.S. congress did not explain anything about how the decision had been 
made in the situation that was the subject of the hearing. Eight U.S. 
attorneys appointed by the justice department which Gonzales heads were 
fired. These attorneys were from different regions of the U.S. and so at 
first the pattern of justice department activity was not obvious to 
congress which is charged with overseeing the activity of the justice 
department.

Stewart comments that Gonzales was willing "to look like a pinhead" rather 
than provide the needed information for congress to carry out its 
oversight functions over the justice department. Elaborating on the 
importance of such oversight functions, Stewart explains (7):

"The election moment is merely the American public saying, 'We'd rather 
you be president than that guy.' That's it. The next four years, though, 
you still have to abide by the oversight process that is there to prevent 
this kind of bizarre sort of cult-like atmosphere that falls along. I 
mean, I accept that kind of veil of secrecy around Tom Cruise and Katie 
Holmes, but I don't accept that around our government."

Another guest on Bill Moyer's show was Joshua Micah Marshall, the head of 
TPM Media, an online media company which is located in the flower district 
of New York City. TPM Media employs several full time reporter bloggers 
who work with Marshall. It publishes TalkingPointsMemo.com and 
TPMmuckraker.com The description of TPMmuckraker explains that 
"TPMmuckraker.com is a news blog dedicated to chronicling, explaining and 
reporting on public corruption, political scandal and abuses of the public 
trust of all sorts." A more elaborate description on the Web site says 
(8):

"As the site's name implies, it is inspired by the early 20th century 
tradition of journalistic muckraking and built on the technologies of the 
early 21st. Our aim is to produce journalism that is pugnacious, lively, 
independent, meticulously factual and fun."

The mechanism of funding is listed as "paid advertising and contributions 
from readers."

TCMmuckraker.com first broke the story of the firing of the eight U.S. 
attorneys by the justice department. The U.S. congress is currently 
investigating the circumstances of these activities. Several of the 
attorneys who were fired were conducting criminal investigations of 
government officials in which the Republican Party took an interest.

Marshall's publication successfully utilized the Internet to piece 
together the activities within the department of justice, which were not 
obvious to outsiders.

In December 2006, Marshall posted a link about the firing of a U.S. 
attorney in Arkansas from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. An article in The 
Los Angeles Times explains what happened: (9)

"Marshall later followed up, adding that several U.S. attorneys were 
apparently being replaced and asked his 100,000 or so daily readers to 
write in if they knew anything about U.S. attorneys being fired in their 
areas. For the two months that followed, Talking Points Memo and one of 
its sister sites, TPM Muckraker, accumulated evidence from around the 
country on who the axed prosecutors were, and why politics might be behind 
the firings. The cause was taken up among Democrats, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. 
Gonzales is now in the media crosshairs."

The participation of readers in making it possible for the details of the 
maneuvers of the justice department to be uncovered is a demonstration of 
the power of citizen participation in a developing news story, a power 
that the Internet makes possible.

Commenting on the potential demonstrated by such exposures, one reader 
writes:(10)

"I think that the Internet has/is doing to journalism what it has done to 
nearly everything else it touches. It 'communitizes' it. That means the 
break down between the roles of the journalist and the reader as each 
starts to take on responsibilities of the other."

The ability of the reader to participate in the development of an 
important story either as a journalist, by discussing the issues involved, 
or by providing tips to the journalist writing the story, are all 
important contributions. Similarly, the ability of the journalist, whether 
trained as a journalist or not, to take up the stories that need to be 
covered in order to monitor the activities of government, to give such 
stories the proper attention and to work with other citizens to develop 
and to spread the stories so that they get adequate coverage and 
attention, are all important contributions to what I am proposing are 
essential aspects of citizen journalism.

As a top notch professional journalist who is also a citizen journalist 
Moyers offers his critique of the failure of much of what presents itself 
as journalism in America. Though there is, he explains, "some world-class 
journalism being done in our country by journalists committed to getting 
as close as possible to the verifiable truth," this is not, Moyers 
proposes, the dominant character of the U.S. media. "The news business is 
at war with journalism," says Moyers. Private interests of unaccountable 
executives and investors have come to dominate how Americans get their 
news, he maintains. Yet Moyers is optimistic. "What encourages me is the 
Internet," he explains. (11)

As the exposure of the firing of the U.S. attorneys scandal continues to 
evolve in the U.S., it is likely to take a collaborative effort of readers 
and journalists continuing with the investigation and publication of the 
details of the story to put pressure on the U.S. Congress to continue its 
investigation. This is an activity for citizens doing the work of 
journalists, and the work of journalists acting as citizens. Such a 
development marks the emergence in the U.S. of a form of journalism which 
is independent of the political and commercial interests, a journalism 
that is critical of what those in power are doing.

Given the unbridled power of government officials in the U.S. there is 
particularly a need for a journalism which will report the news and expose 
the underlying but hidden motives and interests behind the news. Too often 
journalists tell the story that those in power want to be told. Too often 
these journalists act as if they are the public relations department for 
the powerful. Rarely do journalists in the U.S. tell the news from the 
point of view of those who are the victims of the abuse of power by those 
in public office.

Commenting on the important role for such a new media that is not 
corporate dominated and owned, but that is able to fufill the role of 
citizen journalism, Linda Milazzo writes, "New Media voices ... won't 
permit another president to disregard the will of the people as the "Old 
Press" wantonly do, a new press will have free unencumbered voices, much 
of which arise from the Internet."(12)

Writing in 1994, Michael Hauben, co-author of the book Netizens: On the 
History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet proposed that the Net brings 
the power of the reporter to the netizen, to the user of the net.(13) The 
collaboration of the citizen and the journalist to create a socially 
responsible but powerful form of journalism that will be capable of 
monitoring government activities may just now be emerging in the U.S.  
 
 
 
Notes:

(1) Bill Moyers Journal, April 27, 2007 
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/transcript4.html

(2) Citizen Journalists and the New 'News.' A response to Samuel 
Freedman's column on CBS TV's 'Public Eye'
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=283357&rel_no=1

(3)"Cit-J and its Place in Journalism." A reply to Nicholas Lemann's New 
Yorker article
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=312691&rel_no=1

(4) Katherine Noyes, "Journalism 2.0: Power to the People, 
Linux Insider" http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/must-read/57193.html

(5)Ronda Hauben, "OhmyNews and 21st Century Journalism," OhmyNews, 
September 9, 2005
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=246787&rel_no=1

(6) Bill Moyers talks with Jon Stewart, April 27, 2007
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/transcript1.html

(7) Bill Moyers talks with Jon Stewart, April 27, 2007
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/transcript1.html

(8)The urls are: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.org and 
http://tpmmuckraker.com

(9) Terry McDermott, "Blogs can top the presses: Talking Points Memo drove 
the U.S. attorrneys story, proof that Web writers with input from devoted 
readers can reshape journalism," Los Angeles Times, March 17, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-blogs17mar17,0,2952916.story?coll=la-home-headlines

(10) Posted by: Alex (D - No) | April 30, 2007 01:36 AM The Moyers Blog 
"Open Source Journalism"
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/04/opensource_journalism_1.html

(11)Interview with Bill Moyers "on journalism and democracy," The 
Christian Century, April 17, 2007 
http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=3196

(12)NEW MEDIA: THIS AIN'T YOUR CORPORATE MEDIA ANYMORE!
May 5, 2007 at 19:15:11 Opednews.com
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_linda_mi_070505_new_media_3a_this_ain_.htm

(13) Michael Hauben, "The Net and the Netizens," in Netizens: On the 
History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet 
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x01 
 

OMNI url:http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=&no=360069&rel_no=1&back_url