The press earns its protection only because the Constitution says it has a role in U.S. citizens’ freedom of speech. And until recently to speak of the “press” was to speak of the media, because the media had the exclusive role of transmitting news and information.

But now that the tools of publication have left the building, the constitutionally protected role of the “press” no longer only applies to just the media. Arguably, the constitutional term “press” needs to be extended to every citizen who uses social media tools.

In other words: The media used to control the “press” pipeline for free speech; but the Internet puts the tools of publication in EVERYONE’s hands.

So, what privileged roles are left for the media, in terms of freedom of speech? As long as media operations have some revenue stream, they can pay professional reporters and editors, and will likely continue those are historic roles.

But the media is now challenged by the Internet and its social media applications to see itself working with citizens and their groups — who themselves are taking on many of the roles of the traditional “press.”

The media, in its new role, should recognize that the press corps now contains important new (and constitutionally protected) members — the citizens — and work to promote, enhance and protect the activities of these citizen-journalists and their networks. While the media will remain an important PURVEYOR of free speech, it must now work alongside its new partners, the citizens and their diverse groups, to ORGANIZE, FILTER and CURATE the free speech that citizens generate and publish through their own means.

I find it very persuasive.

First of all, I’m certainly not arguing that reporters (amateurs and pros alike) should avoid electronic tools.

I’m simply arguing that although crowds can flesh out hard-news reporting, they can’t build its initial skeleton.

Both the pieces linked in my third paragraph (especially the first one) seemed to imply that crowds can report the bony facts of breaking local news. This isn’t true.

The problem isn’t that volunteers can’t be trusted to report facts. It’s that in non-catastrophic local reporting, there just aren’t enough hands on the job. And there won’t be.

My grandiose use of the phrase “social media” may have been the source of some confusion. (Sorry, Howard. You’re on my longtime-fan-of list, too, by the way.)

Finally, I *love* Erik’s checklist. (Disclaimer: I went to school with Erik.) The newsroom he describes isn’t going to be one of the ones where alternative workflows go to die.

For every topic, every thing that happens, every issue to explore, and every piece of data we encounter, there are any number of ways to use it. Whenever we encounter an issue, a piece of news or a nugget of information, we need to run through an internal checklist that looks something like this:

If this needs to be dealt with, which platforms and “content types” are appropriate methods for packaging and/or distributing it? (Check all that apply.)

__ Conventional news story
__ One paragraph in a conventional news story
__ Video clip
__ Larger-scale video presentation
__ Audio clip
__ Database
__ Spreadsheet
__ Blog post
__ Tweet
__ Wiki-style entry
__ Etc., etc., etc.

What tools will I use in the pursuit of distributing whatever comes out of this?

__ Phone calls
__ E-mails
__ Facebook
__ Twitter
__ Publish2
__ My Web site
__ Someone else’s Web site
__ Public records
__ Databases
__ Spreadsheets
__ Still camera
__ Video camera
__ Tape recorder
__ Etc., etc., etc.

We have more and more tools and distribution modes at our disposal. We need to resist both anyone who insists that the old, comfortable tools are better in every situation and anyone who insists that the old tools are archaic and dead.

Every tool and every mode of distribution is going to have its own strengths and weaknesses that will make it either more or less suited to whatever situation you’re looking at. The trick is becoming familiar with and adept at using enough of them that you’ll always be able to choose the right set for the job.

Since Ryan Sholin’s response addressed examples of the usefulness of social media in each of the four examples you suggested, I won’t do that (but could easily with different examples from the ones Ryan used).

But I’d like to make this point: What useful tool is useful in every story? I can think of a lot of stories where I haven’t used spreadsheets or cell phones. But I wouldn’t be likely to hire a reporter who doesn’t recognize their value and know how and where to use them.

On the paid vs. volunteer question, it needs to be pointed out that there are a number of gradients between the two opposites.

Today, the barrier to entry to become a local news reporter are practically zero, pennies, or even fractions of pennies, on the dollar compared to big-iron newspapers.

That means any number of different people with different motivations and interest can rise up to either fill a niche and pursue a passion.

As The Batavian is showing, you can make a living without a newspaper to back you up. But I could see many of the same principles applied by the hobbyist, the partisan, the recent j-school grad, the out-of-work journalist or the community activist.

The point is, the paid-professional reporter shouldn’t just yet start feeling warm and comfortable that “you can’t do with out me.” That may simply not be true any longer.

With The Batavian, we cover a lot of ground by working hard, leveraging cheap tools and access, confining ourselves to a small coverage area and the relationships we build with readers and sources, who make significant contributions to our ability to get by with a small staff.

And now we have volunteer correspondents, too, who are making more and more contributions.

(1) Eric Schwartz writes, “Good & fair reporting in general won’t be reported by volunteers on a regular basis.” I agree completely that there is very much a valid, important role for professional reporters — and I think the four areas named in the original post are great examples. (Disclaimer: I went to school with the author.)

However, this argument only applies when professional reporters are actually doing what they’re supposed to. The rise of cheap distribution platforms and social media means that if you’re a reporter who’s just been coasting — repeating what people tell you, writing “he-said, she-said” stories that make no effort to go beyond the point-counterpoint, basically engaging in glorified stenography — that isn’t going to cut it anymore.

When professional reporters enjoyed a monopoly on the news thanks to being employed by the only business in town that owned a printing press, they could afford to be lazy. No more.

(2) On social/unbundled/grassroots/”new” media vs. traditional/bundled/top-down/”old” media: There does not need to be a “versus.” This is not an either/or proposition! I’m increasingly of the opinion that there is a valid, important and long-lasting role for BOTH models — that each offers different things to different people, and are best viewed as two complementary ways of approaching the same goal.

Citizens talking on social media like Twitter constitute active networks; they are crucial to a healthy community. The more robust the networks, the healthier the community.

Media’s role should be to enhance, build, filter, challenge those networks.

If you focus just on getting the story, you’re driving into the past.