Photo: flickr/Moreno Berti, CC BY-ND 2.0

Whether journalists can be activists isn’t a new question, but it’s one that’s still being heatedly discussed– especially as digital technologies increasingly make it easy for anyone to create and publish media content. Some say journalism and activism are mutually exclusive because activism, by its very nature, compromises the journalism ethics of balance and neutrality.

Others argue activism is compatible with journalism as long as people are open about their agendas. One of these is Dan Gillmor, a columnist for the Guardian and a university professor who regularly teaches and writes about digital media. He is also the author of several books including Mediactive and We the Media (pdf), which popularized the concept of citizen journalism.

Ahead of a visit to Germany where he is speaking at DW’s Global Media Forum, Dan Gillmor spoke to onMedia about how he defines journalism, uncovering journalism in unexpected places and why he doesn’t trust Facebook.

Dan, is it still relevant today to ask “what is a journalist”?

I think the most important question is “what is journalism” as opposed to “who is a journalist”. A decade or more ago when we started seeing the rise of citizen journalists, it seemed clear we defined a journalist as someone who was getting paid to report. And I thought it was important to define what journalism was and to recognize an ecosystem that was, and still is, getting more diverse and more valuable.

What is journalism then?

It is both difficult and wonderful that we can include many things in the definition. We have to think of journalism as a process rather than an outcome; in the case of journalism, the outcome is information that is useful or entertaining or both. And I felt when we looked at the process instead, it made a much better definition. So I came up with a series of principles. If most of these principles were part of what I was seeing, then I was going to call it journalism.

What are these criteria?

The principles included being thorough, accurate, fair, independent – and here I mean independent thought, not independence of one’s employer and biases but rather looking for things that would challenge the basic assumptions – and transparency. Traditional journalists would probably agree with the first four principles. But because of the principle of transparency, I felt organizations like Human Rights Watch or the American Civil Liberties Union were doing something very close to journalism. After all, most organizations these days have a website and publish their reports, so they are creating media. That is a very exciting development because the ecosystem is getting more diverse.

You have said there is now journalism in places where we never would have discovered it. Can you me give an example?

I certainly wouldn’t have recognized a report from Human Rights Watch as journalism ten years ago – it was only when I realized what they were doing was following these principles that it occurred to me. The only principle I wasn’t sure about was that of ‘independence’ because Human Rights Watch have a certain agenda. But I don’t think their process twists things to meet this agenda. And even if it did, we credit some of the most twisted tabloids as journalism. Human Rights Watch is certainly more independent than tabloids such as Daily Mail and some agenda-driven television and radio (read here about how Human Rights Watch sees its place between journalism and advocacy).

You mean to say, if a political party writes articles transparently, they are producing journalism?

If you leave out the principles of ‘fair’ or ‘independent’, then it is not journalism by any standard. And I can’t image a political party being fair or independent. I would like all five principles to be present but many journalists are not thorough, so it’s a messy definition.

Some say Glenn Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist who broke the Snowden story of the NSA surveillance, is not a reporter, rather he is a liberties activist. What do you think?

I think that is partially mistaken. Greenwald is an advocate and a journalist. And there is a long and proud history of advocacy journalism in the United States, starting with the people we called the muckrakers over a century ago, who were very much trying to change society.

Here in Germany, journalists have criticized Greenwald because he has openly spoken of himself as being part of the activist community.

I guess I would ask your colleagues if they consider themselves part of the German community or part of the journalism community. We are all part of communities of various kinds and does that disqualify us from talking about what effects our communities and backgrounds have on us? No one would suggest we shouldn’t write about our country because we are citizens and therefore biased. Transparency solves a lot of these issues. Glenn is certainly independent in his thinking. He has shown himself able to attack people who have been his allies when they disappoint him. I admire him – I don’t agree with everything he writes – but I don’t know many people who do more homework or more digging.

Shouldn’t what Greenwald writes be considered as commentary rather than journalism?

Again, the lines between commentary and journalism are not always clear. The best traditional journalism gives a nuanced neutral presentation of the issues. But that is not always so clear-cut. From who we interview to the documents we look at and what we leave out, those are often agenda-driven decisions even if we don’t realize it. Our worldview is built into everything we do. What some people worry about is letting a worldview totally dominate and never giving time to people who don’t agree. The answer is, if you are a journalism organization and you want to be the only newspaper that someone looks at, you might decide you have an obligation to be as neutral as possible. I would argue in a world where it is increasingly possible to get information from a variety of sources, it is really the job of the audience to take for granted that there are many views and go looking for alternatives and confirmation. That feels to me than like a better answer.

If I was reading one newspaper every day about my community and that was the only source information I could get – which used to be the case – then I would hope the paper is trying to be independent and fair and thorough and accurate. But the more I would get to know the news, I would realize the owner has an agenda and the editor has an agenda. As such, the kind of neutral journalism that people talk about has never fully existed at all. It is a unicorn. And now that audiences have choices, I hope we can let the unicorn fade away.

At the recent International Journalism Festival in Perugia, you were part of a panel talking about the the Snowden effect. Have whistleblowers like Snowden and organizations like WikiLeaks changed the media landscape?

Sure. WikiLeaks is a journalistic entity. Much of what they do is important, and they are part of this ecosystem, and this is really key to me in thinking about information and media. So I am glad that they are around. Jillian York from the Electronic Frontier Foundation said during the panel, and I agree, that every news organization should have a WikiLeaks-like system to get things from leakers. There is software called SecureDrop, which lets anonymous contributors get documents to news organizations. WikiLeaks showed how things might be done. I don’t 100 percent support everything that they have done but I support them in the journalistic ecosystem very happily.

What does the journalism ecosystem of the future look like?

Journalism is part of a larger media ecosystem. We can see fairly clearly that the tools, the tactics and the techniques of journalism are changing rapidly. But there are some baseline assumptions: anyone with a computer (including those small computers we call mobile phones) using minimal tools can create media, and digital networks are pervasive. This second assumption means that this ecosystem is going to be incredibly diverse, ranging from giant state-supported or corporate media to the individual who witnesses an event, captures it and sends it to, for example, witness.org and helps get the word out. In the case of the people capturing the video, they are not journalists, but they are doing journalistic work.

There are a lot of digital tools such as Facebook or Google out there. Are you worried they will take over what we consume?

What Facebook has accomplished is remarkable from a technical and sociological point of view, and of course as a business. I hardly every use it though because I don’t trust them. They have fairly clear goals: to persuade people to do everything in ways that create data that can be sold or used, and to make Facebook an alternative internet. In some cases, where the data used to surf Facebook is free, Facebook is all people know. Facebook is the internet. Google’s dominance in advertising and their dominance in sheer power of their computing systems and what they know about people is stunning. You can avoid organizations such as Google and Facebook but most people don’t chose to. The search engine I use is DuckDuckGo because they don’t log my data.

Why is that important to you?

I value my privacy and there are principles to uphold. Privacy is essential for all of us. And I would rather pay for things than become the product, which is what these other search engines do. If you are not paying for something on the internet, then you are the product being sold on the internet. I prefer to pay.

How can you convince people to change their online behavior?

When someone says, you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide, that is a grotesque lie. In fact, we all have something that can be used against us. There are so many laws that no matter who you are, and what you have done, you have probably violated some law. The increasing moves to store everything we have said and done means people can go back and find something where you have technically broken that law. I don’t expect that to happen but that is how police states start. The other important thing to realize is that pervasive surveillance is harmful in larger ways. It makes people less willing to speak freely, less innovative, less willing to take the kinds of risks we need for dynamic societies. And it is contrary to any common-sense understanding of liberty. People who are being watched all the time are not free in any sense of the word. We have a lot to fear from 21st century Stasi states.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Interview by Steffen Leidel, edited by Kate Hairsine

Dan Gillmor is a professor of digital media literacy at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. As well as regularly writing for the Guardian, he is the author of several books, including Mediactive. You can follow Dan on Twitter @dangillmor

This is a question that comes up many times in journalism training courses.

Journalists around the world are often faced with the situation where a person they want to interview asks, or even demands, to see a written list of the questions before the interview can take place. It’s also a common request from pushy public relations consultants or the press staff of politicians.

Even journalists just starting out in their career instinctively know this isn’t a good idea. But they and more experienced journalists often lack strong arguments to convince potential guests to do an interview without seeing the questions first.

So, after having talked the issue over with lots of different participants in many training courses, here’s a summary of some of the discussions.

First, we’ll look at why it’s a bad idea to hand over questions. Then, we’ll talk about how to convince your guest to go into an interview without the list of questions they wanted.

Why it’s a bad idea

The main reason handing over a list of questions is a bad idea is that it puts the journalist in a bit of straitjacket. If the interviewee says something interesting you may want to ask follow up questions or totally new questions.

The last thing you want is an interviewee saying, “But that’s not on the list of questions,” and refusing to answer.

Moreover, in certain interviews you may want an element of surprise. For example, if you are going to interview someone about a corruption scandal you might not want them to know exactly how much you know before the interview. Seeing how they react when you present them with certain information for the first time can not only help you assess whether they are telling the truth it can also make for some powerful moments on tape.

There is another more practical reason, however, why handing over a full list of questions isn’t a good idea. The problem is that some people will prepare their answers so thoroughly that their responses will no longer sound natural. If the interview is being recorded this sounds terrible. Audiences will switch off automatically. A prepared statement is not as easy to listen to as a normal conversation. (This can often be a problem when interviewing experts on technical subjects.)

How to “sweet talk” your guests

So how to get around the demand? The first thing to say is that you can, and indeed should, tell the interviewee what the interview is going to be about beforehand.

You can perhaps tell them the main areas to be discussed, and even offer some examples of questions. This is only fair to the interviewee, as most people will want to prepare themselves, and it can mean you end up with a better interview.

But what if the person still wants a written list of all the questions? How to convince them to go ahead without one?

– Explain that giving a list of questions is not usual journalistic practice. Some interviewees may think they have a “right” to see the questions. Other interviewees are just very nervous. They may not have done many media interviews. If you explain how the process usually works this can calm them down.

– Explain that if they prepare their answers too much they will sound stilted and unnatural. Point out that the audience will understand answers better if they sound conversational.

– If it’s not going to be a confrontational interview, reassure the person. Build a relationship of trust. Make it clear you will help them through the interview. If they are still really nervous, and if the interview is not live, you can suggest they can stop and start their answers.

– In certain cases it may be appropriate to let your audience know the conditions the person imposed before the interview could go ahead. If you tell your interviewee that you are going to include a phrase like this in the story, they may decide not to impose conditions after all.

If all else fails?

So what to do if the potential interviewee just won’t be convinced and is still demanding a full list of questions?

Well the first thing to ask of course is, “Do I really need to interview this person?” Is there another person out there who won’t be so difficult and might provide a better interview?

If the interview has to happen, and has to happen with this person, then you’ll have to give in. Journalists can’t force people to be interviewed after all.

One final tip though:

Once the interview has started, and especially if it’s being recorded, try to ask some questions that aren’t on the list (unless you have explicitly promised to stick to the list.) Some people may loosen up a bit once the tape is running.

Have you encountered interviewees demanding questions in advance? What happened? How did you get around it? Lets us know in comments below or on our Facebook page.

Author: Martin Vogl

Along with asking how they work with photographers, we wanted know more about digital photo editing and the line between aesthetics and truth in photojournalism. How far do you edit a photograph without altering its context or meaning?

It’s a debate that also surrounded Paul Hansen’s winning photograph in this year’s World Press Photo award.

Paul Hansen, Dagens Nyheter: World Press Photo of the Year, Spot News

But given that photography is increasingly delivered and consumed online, how can more information be offered to a publication’s audience to not only enhance understanding of the image, but perhaps see an original and edited image – in the one file?

Fred Ritchin is a Professor of Photography and Imaging at New York University, and was picture editor of The New York Times Magazine from 1978-82.

He has long called for a broader standard to be developed: “whereby each of the four corners of a photograph might contain information placed there by the photographer which again would be made apparent to an interested reader who rolls over each corner”.

In a recent post on The Daily Beast Drama, Manipulation and Truth: Keeping Photojournalism Useful Ritchin explained his idea:

“The bottom right corner would contain the credit, copyright and/or Creative Commons information, a caption, and information as to whether the image had been manipulated. The bottom left corner would provide a larger context for the making of the image, its back story, recounted by the photographer, the subject, an eyewitness, or whoever else might be appropriate. The upper left corner would provide more still or video imagery to give a larger sense of what was going before or after the primary photograph was made. And the upper right corner would link to other websites (perhaps including the photographer’s own) that would help to provide further pertinent details and information.”

Ritchin has published a new book Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen which we plan to review for you shortly, and we’ll also take a look at ways of applying his idea in a forthcoming post on Thinglink in our Tools and Apps for Journalists series.

Author: Guy Degen

(Our thanks to World Press Photo for the use of Paul Hansen’s photograph)