Mass Amateurization

Clay Shirky opens his description of mass amateurization with the story of Trent Lott in 2002 – how he praised Strom Thurmond and the reactions from media outlets disregarding Lott’s comments. Shirky describes that it was bloggers, not news stations like FOX or CNN, who reacted and made the story to a mass public.

Shirky says that news can mean “events that are newsworthy, and events covered by the press.” (Shirky, 64) Like we have discussed previously, news stations & papers will generally present a story to the owner’s liking because news is a “business”. Many think some of the packages presented on hourly news shows or on the front page of a paper are not newsworthy – showing how much a movie made as opposed to a story about a child missing. With technology and communication constantly growing, there is an opportunity for stories to be seen. For a while only “professionals” were able to send messages to the world, but now with a vast amount of social networks, & web design being simple, more “amateurs” can spread their opinions AND amateurs can comment on those opinions as well. That’s not to say that traditional media sources will eventually be outdated & ignored, it just means that there are more outlets to know what is going on in the world without editing the content (just the grammar).

There are too many examples of “mass amateurism” in news publishing to pick just one to focus on. Today we learned more about the Iranian martyr Neda, and just recently the news of Amy Winehouse’s death was spread because of breaking news on Twitter, Facebook, Google News, etc. Shirky’s example of the most important form of “mass amateurization” is Guttenberg’s printing press, and I would have to agree with that. If Guttneberg did not do it, someone else would have eventually, but because of Guttenberg’s invention today we have people publishing their work both either for monetary rewards, or for the pure thrill of writing.

I do not think that the media professional career will die out. As I know from working in sports media, professional writers as well as just bloggers are looked at constantly for information on teams and leagues. Twitter has become a source for anchors and reporters to get breaking news or more information for their show; crediting the source they got it from. For instance – this past weekend was the whole Plaxico Burress ordeal that captivated football fans particularly in New York. Because of Twitter, football writers, professional & amateur, got word of this particular player’s decision to move from the Giants to the Jets. I saw the breaking news on Twitter and was able to write a package for the show Sports Xtra later that night crediting the writers/outlets we got our information from. We added a sound bite that was available via ESPN, though that is not “amateur” it shows what information is easily available nowadays. The point is, at least in the sports world, the combination of professional & amateur is heavily depended on by one another, reporters and anchors frequently look for insider information that may not be attainable by a large outlet such as ESPN. Although, sports & news are very, very different.

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