What I've Learned Teaching Citizen
Journalists
By Douglas McGill
The McGill Report
ROCHESTER,
MN – Three years ago,
I started teaching basic
journalism skills to citizens
in community education classes in Minneapolis.
Since then I’ve taught about a hundred ordinary folks – school teachers,
government workers, not-for-profit types, retired people, students and many others – the
basics of journalistic story structure, ethics and practices.
I
taught at the Resource Center of the Americas, a Latino cultural
center in Minneapolis, until it closed
last August, and now am teaching for the Minneapolis
Public Schools Community Education department.
My students take the class for many reasons. Some want to do
journalism on the Internet to cover a favorite issue such as
health care, human
rights, or immigration
reform.
Some want to learn skills to use writing not-for-profit
newsletters, corporate reports or press
releases. And some are simply curious to discover how
journalism works, because they’ve
been consuming the news media for years without understanding
it.
New
Views
The class meets once a week for three hours over
six-weeks, writing and rewriting articles
between classes, reading and commenting on each other’s
work during class. I invite working mainstream
reporters and editors to many classes,
to describe to citizens their daily jobs, their attitudes towards
their work,
and to answer whatever questions the students
have.
The class has changed my view of my role
as a journalist, of journalism’s
role in a democracy, and of the promises and pitfalls of the many forms
of citizen journalism that are a part of
the news
media today.
Here are the seven main lessons I’ve
learned from my citizen-students, so far:
1. Citizens are an
untapped source of expertise and positive
civic energy
that journalists can help unlock. Every
one of my citizen journalism students
has had years
of personal experience in some important
civic issue. They are aching to share
that knowledge
but have been hampered by A) Their cynicism
about journalists and journalism, B)
A lack of reporting
and writing skills, and C) An incipient
sense, like a vague but possibly potent memory,
of journalism’s
role as a foundation stone of democracy. The best
possible teachers of these skills and attitudes
of democracy are journalists. But journalists and
their employers need to rethink their purpose and
role in society for that to happen. We need to
start thinking about journalists taking weeks,
months and even years away from their newsroom
jobs, to go into classrooms and auditoriums and
public meeting halls to teach and to remind citizens – and
to remind themselves – about how to read
and write journalism critically and intelligently,
and about journalism’s critical role in a
democracy. Projects involving journalists fanning
out into society in teaching roles would renew
trust between journalists and citizens,
and show the way towards new business models
for
journalism,
too.
2. There is no
substitute for a strong, independent, institutional
journalism. My
students are experts in many fields – mental
health, immigration, aging, urban planning,
human rights, animal rights, sports, local
culture,
recycling, water and air pollution, organic
food, the legal
system on Indian reservations, alternative
medicine, and the Minnesota electoral system,
to name just
a few. But even under the rosiest scenario
-- with citizens becoming skilled online
journalists in
all of these areas -- the result would
be a journalism
of special interests, and not of inclusive
public interest. Most importantly, such
a journalism would not constitute the strong
counterweight
to government
and corporate power that only an organized
and
healthy professional journalism can provide.
3. Citizens can help journalists reconnect
to the wellsprings of their craft. It
happened to me. Like many journalists
these days, I’m a refugee from mainstream newsrooms,
where I worked hard and happily for many years.
Until, one day, the relationship just didn’t
work any more. Something about too many assignments
that served corporate and not civic interests.
I haven’t made much money teaching citizen
journalism, but I’ve found citizens who care
about journalism like they care about clean air
and water. It’s energizing.
4. Journalists
need to learn citizenship skills, as
much as citizens
need
to learn journalism. Time and again,
I have been shocked in my class to witness
the gap
that’s grown up between ordinary
citizens and journalists. Even highly-educated
citizens
tend to be ignorant of the simplest facts
about how journalism is created. Many
students are surprised
to learn, for example, that every word
in a newspaper is not fact-checked before
it’s published.
On the other hand, journalists who visit
my class, and I myself, sometimes display
an apparently ingrained,
patronizing aloofness to the students,
especially when we’re called on
our aloofness. We journalists tend to
be super-sensitive
when we’re the ones
being asked questions. Ordinary citizens
know that
at least some doctors are relaxed, approachable
people.
But based on my experience these past
three years, few citizens have learned
that lesson
about journalists.
5. A good citizen journalism
class, like a great newspaper, allows for all types
of expression – artistic, poetic,
literary, photographic, musical, comical
and fun. Because
it’s created by human beings, journalism
is a diverse and highly personal form of expression.
Only by fully embracing that does journalism offer
the complete picture of society that it should.
I don’t tell students what stories to write,
and they repay me by singing their hearts out in
every possible way. One of my favorite stories
in class was by a Guatemalan immigrant who described
buying bottles of “crema” – a
fermented sweet-and-sour concoction that tastes
wonderful on strawberries – whenever
she needed to connect with home. (She
brought actual
crema and strawberries to class after
we read her story and begged for a sample.)
Another
student wrote about a scrawny feline
named
Buffer, the
pet cat in a home of human castaways,
in a way that put the problem of homelessness
in
a
tragicomic new light.
6. Citizens create
vital community consciousness through
the discipline of writing journalistically. A
magical thing happens in the class, every
time.
Over six weeks, students in the class write
one story (or
rewrite one) between classes, then share
it with the entire class for feedback.
This
creates
a
bond of solidarity among the students.
A sense of gratitude
builds towards each person in class who
shares their personal insights and experiences,
often at some risk to personal pride.
The insistence
on telling the absolute truth that journalism
requires, often forces students to reveal
personal knowledge
beyond what they had ever dared to publicly
share. One of my students, a retired
business consultant,
wrote an article decribing his inner
struggle at becoming a peace activist
while his
son
was serving
in the Army in Iraq. His story created
a sense of solidarity in the room that was
mystically
strong. This is perhaps a microcosm of
how journalism could
ideally work in society, creating community
day by day. “My view of journalism
has changed,” one
student emailed me after the course. “At
its best, it serves like an amazing expansion
of our personal experience, bringing
truth into our
consciousness.” Bingo.
7. I’m the one
who needs to change. I began
as a journalist in the heyday of Woodward-and-Bernstein
in newspapers, and of John McPhee in magazines.
So I often get
nostalgic for spacious, context-rich
narratives
when I read the new citizen journalism
appearing
on the Net. “Giant
Puffball Found in Clifton,” read
a recent headline from the hyperlocal
website, Baristanet.
Where is the “Why should
I care?” paragraph in the story?
Not to mention readers' calorie-free
comments like one after the mushroom
story: “Shrooms
rule.” When I settle down,
though, I realize the error of my conservative
reactions. Change is welcome, adapting
smartly is the
challenge, and Baristanet itself is a
fantastic
model. For
mixed among its whimsical squibs on cute
witches and record-shattering
dosas are items reporting on urban
trends, crimes, public
protests, and so on. Baristanet is
doing just what journalism should do. It reports on its community with
ethical attention, it has fun, and it follows in word and spirit
democracy’s ultimate dictum: Citizens
rule.
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