RE: The Truth is in danger! The Death of Investigative Journalism and What We Can Do About It. {Making Steemit A Journalism Hub}
What an amazing post to stumble across late at night (an hour after I took my seizure meds i.e. right before I have to crash into bed - so I'll have to come back and add my coherent thoughts tomorrow). This is an excellent proposal and I'm 1000% behind it. I'm an NYU Journalism school grad and worked my way around the globe doing freelance journalism gigs at various papers and magazines. My real passion has always been critical writing but of course the demand for that is virtually zero these days. When I was in high school part of our graduation requirement was a senior internship - most kids went with no-brainers like Kinkos or local ice cream stores because fuck it, it was spring semester and college acceptance letters were already in. Mine was with the Philadelphia Inquirer and my mentor was my friend's dad who was a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative war correspondent who had seen combat in virtually every major violent conflict since Vietnam (my friend was born in a bombed-out hospital in 1982 in Beruit). He had written part of the book that the movie "Black Hawk Down" was based on. I started my internship by helping proofread his multi-article series about drug lord raids in Colombia. He was amazing and wrote exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to write: meaty, weighty, meaningful journalism the way journalism was meant to be.
I think Steemit could be useful in a number of ways, maybe as a means of fostering the freelance journalism community which has been suffering so much lately? As a platform for crowdsourcing investigative projects with one or two or more main writers? I'll come back tomorrow when the Topamax and Lamictal aren't making me loopy lol.
Wow! Glad to hear from someone in the trade... I have no journalism experience whatsoever but it pains me that such an important job in the society is treated with levity. Can't wait to hear more from you tomorrow. Stay strong :)
So I definitely think Steemit could be the perfect platform for crowdsourced investigative journalism. It would provide financial compensation - which, let's face it because we have to be honest, is one of the two greatest threats to the field (lack of fair compensation and lack of journalistic integrity being the other). And it would dramatically cut down the time it takes to put a story together from start to finish. Investigative journalism entails an enormous amount of legwork: there is an endless process of running around, tracking people down, pursuing leads, waiting on phone calls, wasting time on dead ends...not to mention the time actually spent on writing the piece itself. Crowdsourced journalism would allow members to contribute pieces of the story collaboratively while working simultaneously on their own leads, then adding their information to the group thread (via the comments?...not sure how else to keep it all collated) for the head writer or writers to compile into the final article. This allows the reporter to conduct interviews, connect with sources on the ground and pick up pieces of insider info from virtually all over the globe, and ensures each participant will be compensated fairly for their contribution. Important stories will get the coverage they desperately need, but in the thoughtful, in-depth format that classic critical journalism can provide, which is normally too time-consuming to produce to keep up with today's internet-based deadlines.