Can I Get a Fact-checker Please?

As we have discussed in class and on this blog, one of the critiques most often leveled at citizen journalists, particularly in the semi-anonymous blogosphere, is their lack of credibility and accountability. A common rebuttal to this critique is that citizen journalists occupy a different niche than the credentialed press corps. Their role, advocates argue, is simply to report honest, unedited, personal stories, “from the ground,” and it’s the job of the card-carrying journalists to do the fact-checking, worry about pesky professional ethics, attempt to maintain some level of integrity, objectivity, etc.

Where do you draw the line, though, between “real” journalism and anything-goes rogue journalism? Is it acceptable for news outlets that enjoy a perceived credibility, riding the increasingly blurry line between the professional and unprofessional, to pick up a blog story (i.e., a rumor) and report on it, provided they qualify it with the adjective “unconfirmed”?

Critics of citizen journalism scored a point this week when a false report that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a major heart attack led to a very sudden, 10% dip in Apple’s stock trading value. CNet’s Greg Sandoval reported on how the rumor originated, spread, created a panic, and then died, all in a matter of minutes. Apparently, the rumor began on iReport.com a CNN-sponsored community blog, which promises: “Unedited. Unfiltered. News.” The identity of the user who submitted the report is being investigated by the SEC.

At issue for many media traditionalists, is that the “story” was picked up by a well-regarded digital business blog, Silicon Alley Insider, which reported on it without first hearing from Apple or Jobs’s representatives, simply noting that the report was “unconfirmed.”

Amidst much controversy, Silicon Alley Insider defended their decision, arguing that: a. the story had gained traction when the report was spread, and thus somehow substantiated, via posts to Twitter and Digg; b. in occupying the unique niche of “online journalists,” they do not view their roles as serving as media “gatekeepers;” and c. as such, they should not be held to the same standards of accuracy as mainstream outlets like The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. They conclude that their primary responsibility is to privilege immediacy of information over accuracy.

Hm. Really?

Origins of “Fourth Estate”

This brief article explains how the term “fourth estate” was coined to refer to the mainstream press:

Estate in this sense was first used in the 14th century and means ‘a major political or social group or class’. These groups comprised the body politic and participated in the government, either directly or through their representatives. In England, the estates were the Lords Spiritual, the Lords Temporal, and the Commons. In France, the estates were the clergy, the nobles, and the townsmen.

In 1752 Henry Fielding spoke of “that very large and powerful body which form the fourth estate…The Mob.” Thomas Carlyle was the first to refer to journalists as the “Fourth Estate” although he attributes the usage to Edmund Burke: “Burke said there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important than they all” (Hero-worship, 1841). The full quotation makes clear the growing power of the press and Carlyle’s belief that it should serve as a guardian of democracy and a check on the power of the other “estates.”

The article goes on to explain “fifth estate” journalism:

And this brings us to the fifth estate, which Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines as ‘any class or group in society other than the nobility, the clergy, the middle class, and the press’. Early references use the term for trade unions, for the poor, for organized crime, for radio, and then for television…

…People dissatisfied with mainstream journalism maintain that we need a fifth estate because the fourth estate is abdicating its responsibility as a watchdog against government and failing to provide balanced coverage.