Published: April 15, 2008 11:38 pm            

STEPHANIE SALTER: What’s a two-word term for ‘opinionated’? Citizen journalism

TERRE HAUTE —

There are no standards of journalism on the Internet. I’m always second-guessing myself. Is this the right thing to do? Am I being fair?

— Huffington Post blogger Mayhill Fowler, who set off “Bittergate” for Barack Obama, as quoted in The New York Times



Anyone who thinks there is little difference between the practice of professional journalism and that of amateur or “citizen” journalism, should study the rich and complex story of Mayhill Fowler’s skyrocket to unexpected fame.

Lest ye be without TV, radio, print or Internet, what is now known as “Bittergate” broke last week after Fowler shared her personal impressions of an Obama fundraiser she attended in the home of a wealthy San Franciscan. A regular blogger for the Huffington Post’s Off The Bus section, Fowler taped Obama’s entire 51-minute talk, not surreptitiously, as zillions of people are charging in cyberspace, but with a hand-held tape recorder.

The now-notorious quotes that she chose to focus on in an April 11 blog, came about 32 minutes into Obama’s talk. Although Fowler did not say so, the remarks about “bitter” people in rust-belt and small-town America, who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them …” were part of a long answer to a question.

A couple about to travel to Pennsylvania to canvass for Obama asked what sort of questions they should prepare for.

Fowler’s fairly low-profile, self-reflective blog immediately broke out of the crowd, not only on the HuffPost — which boasts 1,800 Off The Bus contributors — but also the gargantuan blogosphere.

Within hours (moments?), Obama’s two opponents, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, jumped on the selected quotes with both feet, calling them “out of touch” and “elitist.” Then it was professional journalism’s turn to address the explosion.

As so often happens in this era of 24-hour news and downsized newsrooms, the first reporting by the MSM — blogger for “mainstream media” — was shallow and sound-bitten. The reporting followed a traditional MSM breaking-news formula that has become a loaded weapon in today’s world of instant feedback and judgment:

This happened. This side says it’s an outrage. This side is explaining or spinning. These three people interviewed at random on the street think such and such about the subject. And these dozens of talking heads will shout about it for the next 48 hours.

The rest of Obama’s talk, the whole of his answer to the Pennsylvania-bound folks, were lost to the ether. One person’s highly subjective reaction — “For the first time, I realized he is an elitist,” Fowler wrote — was transformed into a “fact” to be dealt with or exploited.

Next thing you know, Obama was trailing Clinton by 20 points, a week before the Pennsylvania primary.

Depending on who talked, Fowler became either a brave, principled, hard-working journalist (the HuffPost editors’ characterization) or a duplicitous double-agent (one of the nicer accusations by Obama supporters frothing all over the ’Net).

Based on her own revelations, Mayhill Fowler is neither.

In previous postings and a Web bio, she says she was raised in Tennessee but has lived in Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, for more than 30 years. Her first trip into her city’s run-down, struggling east side came only last August, when she decided to check out a sparsely attended Obama rally.

Fowler says she is 61, a wife, mother of two, fan of politics and a person whose limited writing has been an avocation. On and off for months, she has followed the Obama campaign on her own money and blogged about it on Arianna Huffington’s breakthrough news/commentary Web site — for free. (Citizen journalists rarely get paid.)

Unlike mainstream media political reporters who are prohibited from supporting candidates with their names or their pocketbooks, Fowler has been an open Obama supporter, contributing $2,300 to his campaign. She also gave $100 to the presidential efforts of Hillary Clinton and $500 to a fellow Tennesseean, former GOP candidate Fred Thompson.

In her dual roles as citizen journalist and check-writing supporter, Fowler attended other Obama fundraisers, private and public, and blogged about some but not all. A friend gave her a ticket to the $1,000-a-head gathering in San Francisco.

As she told the New York Times’ Katharine Seelye, she had no idea this particular event was not to be reported upon.

“We had a fundamental misunderstanding of my priorities,” Fowler said of her hosts and Obama’s campaign staff. “Mine were as a reporter, not as a supporter. They thought I would put the role of supporter first.”

And for a while, Fowler apparently thought so, too.

According to interviews after her April 11 blog, Fowler says she wrestled for days over whether to write about the part of Obama’s talk that had taken her “aback.” Her own husband was of no help. After reading the comments in question, he couldn’t see why they bothered her nor why she thought they were news.

During her discernment, an editor gave Fowler the kind of advice journalism students get the first week of Basic Reporting: “If you’re going to cover the campaign, you have to not be partial or your coverage isn’t worth as much as it could be.”

Fowler’s dilemma was resolved. Her Obama supporter’s hat was off and the reporter’s was on.

Except the “report” Fowler filed was classic citizen journalism. Rather than keep her own emotions, values and reactions as far out of the story as possible, as traditional journalists do, she used them all to interpret and condemn Obama’s words. What had struck her husband — and many others — as inoffensive had struck her as wrong and in need of exposure.

Her HuffPost editors, who are committed to the exciting, fluid concept of opinionated observations from all corners of the populace, were happy to accommodate her. They view Fowler’s interpretation of Obama’s talk as all good — a major “scoop” that grabbed attention, got people talking and may affect the outcome of the Democratic presidential primary.

A few days later, David Coleman, who also was present at the California fundraiser and, like Fowler, has heard many of Obama’s stump speeches, weighed in on the HuffPost with his reaction.

“In context and in person, Senator Obama’s remarks about Pennsylvania voters left an impression diametrically opposed to that being trumpeted by his competitor’s campaigns,” he said, in a lengthy blog that listed many elements of the 51-minute talk.

Coleman’s conclusion about the firestorm started by Fowler’s “elitist” label on Obama: “No good effort at intelligent analysis, candor — and what I heard as an attempt to convey a profound understanding of both what people feel and why they feel it — goes unpunished.”

Two different people, two different takes on the same block of words. In the mainstream media, their opinions might have been twinned on an opinion page. In the citizens media, where feelings are truths and reporting can be an enthusiastic e-mail, their dispatches are journalism. Mayhill Fowler’s made international news. David Coleman’s didn’t.

Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.

        

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