Welcome to the Infinite Copying Machine (and a new era of sharing knowledge)

 

The cross­roads that we are fac­ing as jour­nal­ists is like a jun­gle before us: unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry. The age of tech­nol­o­gy has­n’t just affect­ed us or the careers that we’ve cho­sen, but the entire world and soci­ety as a whole. It isn’t just lim­it­ed to the spread­ing of infor­ma­tion either. As the world steps for­ward into the infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties of intel­lec­tu­al pio­neer­ing and engi­neer­ing, there is a lot to risk and much to gain. Jour­nal­ism, espe­cial­ly as we’ve known it, is threat­ened by the easy avail­abil­i­ty of infor­ma­tion. But the vast shar­ing of infor­ma­tion, which is the main focus of “Steal This Film II,” has nev­er been more attainable.

This is a ques­tion you need to ask your­self first: Why am I doing this?

Hav­ing watched Steal This Film II, the real­i­ty of infor­ma­tion spread­ing rapid­ly and con­sumers becom­ing their own cre­ators excites me. Of course, the film focused great­ly on music and enter­tain­ment rather than news and facts. But the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reach­ing the edges of the world with my words and pic­tures is exhil­a­rat­ing. This means I want my con­tent to be excel­lent and I want it to be for every­one. I want this free flow of infor­ma­tion: but I also want peo­ple to trust my information.

So, what do we do?

As com­pe­ti­tion in the field of jour­nal­ism is becom­ing more cut-throat, where news orga­ni­za­tions are lay­ing off more work­ers and rely­ing on few­er peo­ple to gath­er as much con­tent, the bet­ter you are, the greater your chances of mak­ing it. It’s rare to see jour­nal­ists main­tain­ing the stan­dard of true jour­nal­ism because the busi­ness is becom­ing just that: a busi­ness. Can we still call our­selves the watch­dogs of the gov­ern­ment? Are we still keep­ing a bal­ance between the peo­ple and the gov­ern­ment through infor­ma­tion and truth?

Let’s be real and keep it cool

In the Fairey vs AP case, though Fairey did not prop­er­ly attribute Man­nie Gar­cia for his image use, I think Gar­cia could have worked with Fairey after real­iz­ing how he was wronged. There is a greater good to be sought out. Gar­ci­a’s pic­ture was tak­en to fill con­tent for AP and the focus was on George Clooney instead of Oba­ma. But with Fairey’s art, the Oba­ma cam­paign went soar­ing. I think as jour­nal­ists, we should be able to pro­vide images and facts that can change the world- images and facts that should be viewed, shared, and used by con­sumers. But we also deserve cred­it (or at least shout-outs) for the work that we do. Though the pic­ture was already cred­it­ed to AP, already pub­lished and rec­og­nized, Fairey should have said some­where, at some point, “Thanks to Man­nie Gar­cia.” If I were Gar­cia, I would’ve went right to Fairey and said, “Not cool. Please fix this.”

I think we’re head­ing toward a rev­o­lu­tion cre­at­ed by the ten­sion between the demand of free-flow­ing infor­ma­tion and the ful­fill­ment of their eco­nom­ic val­ue shaped by laws and sys­tems. But instead of get­ting caught up in a fren­zy about it, I think we should take a step back, observe (like we are sup­posed to) what’s hap­pen­ing, and eval­u­ate the sit­u­a­tion rather than enforce law­suits. In this case of Fairey vs AP, I feel as though jour­nal­ism turned its back on the peo­ple it serves.

Ways we can sur­vive, some truths about journalism

1. Your rep­u­ta­tion in the busi­ness means everything.
2. Cre­ate a sol­id base, push your­self to new lim­its and show off your work.
3. Before tak­ing on any assign­ment, know why you are doing it.
4. The way you treat peo­ple and the way you make peo­ple feel will be remem­bered, so make your­self mem­o­rable to your subjects.
5. You are doing a pub­lic ser­vice for the public.
6. Make sure you apply your­self to an orga­ni­za­tion that you want to be a part of because of shared values.
7. Always share cor­rect infor­ma­tion and clear any doubts.