Wagging its tail

Six years ago, in London, at a congress of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (www.icij.org), Professor Rosental Calmon Alves, from the University of Austin, Texas, declared the emergence of a coquettish "eucentric" journalism. There was a reason for this, which could even be considered a denial of journalism as we know it, Rosental stated: the exponential growth of blogs. The reader, that entity repeatedly placed by journalists in that slippery knot that executioners know so well how to tie, had grown tired of seeing the world narrated by others. The narrative was gradually passing into the hands of the narrated.

When, in the first five years of the new millennium, the owners of traditional media realized they were losing their primacy over their platforms, losing their hegemony in the telling of facts, they finally softened their traditional petulance with a few minor reforms. The deep and regular vibration, emanating from the reader, that historically mistreated entity, demanded a greater participation in that construct which he had had to swallow for years on end: the story narrated by a professional journalist.

This is how the self-centered world, advocated by Rosental, had its first revolution: it consisted of wagging its tail at the reader, initially offering them attractive features under the generic designation of the word "I". This is also how, overnight, and frequently, the news consumer found themselves freed from having to put up with the journalist – in a versatile world that initially offered them the editing of pages. In the primeval world of reader participation, you saw, with immeasurable pleasure, the media offering you page editing, those little red squares at the bottom of the portals, promising RSS (really simple syndication): where you, previously snubbed/rejected, were now invited to have editing mechanisms. The devout and stupid congregation uniting journalists against (and about) the reader seemed to dissolve like water in water: those who had always despised the news consumer began to wag their tails at them. And almost kneeling, he pleaded: "Please sneak over to our pages, you can edit them now."

But even that wasn't enough for the reader, that mistreated one (a reader who writes for newspapers is crazy, Paulo Francis noted): in the last five years, the sententious idea of ​​winning back an audience now searching for its own narrative had to adopt new techniques. To the invitation to edit the world via RSS, new classes of techniques were added. Editing the pages was no longer enough. The new, restrictive solutions followed one another in a very specific chronology: in addition to editing the pages, the public could comment on them, suggest them, and share them on their social networks. This generated some monstrosities, like the long tail theory turning into something else entirely: journalists paid by governments attack a certain point and release comments to a supposed audience, without controlling those comments. Below the report, signed by the owner of the site or blog (usually a once-famous journalist), follow comments from readers, whose identification control is minimal or nonexistent. This is what Noam Chomsky calls "consensus manufacturing": you think that those commenting represent a significant and genuine segment of readers, when in most cases this long tail of comments is absolutely false – and often commissioned, precisely to manufacture consensus. It's no wonder that blogs and websites sponsored by governments, officially and unofficially, have no control over comments. It's a no-man's land. All the ethics demanded of major newspapers, in this wasteland, turn to dust: the future of ethics in this territory is darker than a crow's wing...

Furthermore, new forms of encouragement have been offered to readers. In the last three years, the New York Times and the Washington Post have launched neighborhood newspapers. Le Monde created www.lepost.fr, a newspaper written by readers, whose production is overseen by a career journalist. Television, newspapers, portals—all are now asking the average reader, that neglected old-timer of the past, to recount stories from their neighborhood, make videos and take photos, and some are even paid for it. Tolstoy's phrase, "If you want to be universal, speak of your village," has never been more relevant. One of the most resounding successes in the US is www.everyblock.com, a website geared towards the parochial interests of neighborhoods and ghettos, but which is successful worldwide. Globalization has become blog-ization: the neighborhood, and the reader, have become the new protagonists. But not only protagonists: the much-talked-about "crowdsourcing" is nothing more than trying to make the reader, this mistreated individual, the source of their own stories. Even the most sought-after traditional sources don't even want to talk to journalists anymore: they put it on their blogs, and anyone who wants to can take everything from there. An example is the blogs of the prosecutor and the bus, maintained by prosecutor Saad Mazloum, who is also a highly sought-after source among journalists covering cities. The French Revolution beheaded El Rey: the media revolution of the last six years is beheading the journalist.

But it's not only in journalism that the loss of platform primacy is occurring. In music, ever since the Apple Macintosh created the "garage band" program, anyone can compose their own song: just choose from thousands of "presets" with pre-composed guitar riffs and drums. Composing music has become cut and paste, a bric-a-brac where what matters is managing forms, not creating them. Journalism is now done by the masses, and music also readily gives the populace elements to compose, simply by cutting and pasting. Postmodern art is also going in this direction: it requires the art consumer to interact with it, to alter it. In Deleuze's understanding, the scenic world, so characteristic of modernity, gives rise to an obscene, transparent, interactive, yet modern, world in which the traditional barriers between musician, journalist, and artist fall. The people are required to be the editors and producers of knowledge.

Now that the public has become the biggest competitor of the "market" journalist, and also has a say in the production of narratives, media owners are focusing on another attractive feature (which, presumably, will save them money). This involves the creation of "clouds," clouds of information, and the model is simple: the reader, even the one who produces their own narrative, wants everything at their fingertips. A 50-year-old citizen, who has accumulated thousands of books and CDs throughout their life, no longer wants to move to look for information in their archive, let's say. They want CDs, records, information, right under their nose. The market value of portals lies in the production of "clouds" so that the reader can find everything there, without lifting a finger.

Don't be fooled if someone in journalism wags their tail at you: the look on the media owner's face today is as cheerful as the violinist's on the Titanic. They know the future is uncertain. But it can be a little safer if the reader, that formerly vilified entity, can participate in the whole thing.