22/06/2008

The second life of journalism

CARLOS EDUARDO LINS DA SILVA
ombudsman@uol.com.br

The spirit of journalism in which the ideal is that everyone is a journalist finds that many are adept at our side of reality

Many have already decreed the death of print journalism. Now there are already those who predict the replacement of journalism in the real world with the universe of a second life, in which values such as the necessity to check facts to see if they at least happened stopped having any significance.

The Institute of Economic and International Studies, one of those rare groups of intellectuals willing to produce independent knowledge, that involves surviving in Brazil, last week held an international seminar in São Paulo about the media in which the virtual world was one of the attractions.

The Second Life, a 2003 creation of Linden Lab, a technology company in San Francisco, Calif., is much more than a game. It intends to be an alternate reality.

Its residents, more than 5 million now, create avatars of themselves. The avatar is neither a clone of its creator nor a copy as in the Blade Runner universe. It is an improved person. A shy, obese man can become athletic and bold.

The avatars come to life, walk, fly, work, play, and conduct business in the virtual world with real money in the real world. They buy clothing, land and houses (already moving more than US $60 million per year).

They also practice journalism. They have communications media in the virtual world, created and developed by avatars, who report the events in Second Life. And there are communications media in the real world that are established in the alternate reality.

Reuters and CNN are two examples of news organizations which established offices and correspondents in this new universe.

It couldn't all be an intelligent, frivolous or psychotic joke --depending on taste-- of societies and individuals which have already resolved (or think they have resolved) their basic material problems and take on the luxury of life and toys in which they overcome their frustrations and limits.

The problem is that this spirit of journalism in which the ideal is that everyone is a journalist finds that many are adept at our side of reality.

The concept of journalist-citizen, which has a lot of positive elements, can generate complicated situations. See the recent example of Mayhill Fowler, who interviewed ex-president Bill Clinton passing as a simple voter and entered a meeting of candidate Barack Obama posing as a volunteer for his campaign.

She reported sensational statements by both and caused great damage to both. Was this a public service? Was it practicing good journalism? Did it show to society what both politicians really think but don't tell the public? Or was it unethical and dishonest, acting under the logic that the ends justify the means?

Does it make sense to discuss journalistic ethics in this atmosphere? At the seminar in São Paulo, a British researcher said that the concept of privacy is "a product of the industrial age, which now has ended," and that, therefore, "it should not surprise us that we are seeking to build new ways of forming an on-line identity."

If all the human values are at risk in this environment of multiple realities, why do those of journalism survive?

Note from the real world

Folha is doing a bad job at covering the strike by teachers in São Paulo. It should contact more sources, deeply analyze the topics being debated, and tell about the situation in school through checking. It was superficial, bureaucratic and uncritical.
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The press in São Paulo was uncomfortable that the main revelations about the suspicion of corruption in the São Paulo government by the Alstom multinational was done by the American newspaper "The Wall Street Journal."
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The column by Janio de Freitas turns 25 in Folha. Praise is being heaped on the reporter, one in the best in the newspaper's history, by the newspaper and mainly by readers. Among the great things done by the column was revealing the scandal in the North-South railway in 1987.
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Folha did a good job by defending freedom of the press and expression as if faced the absurd actions by the Electoral Court for its interview with (former São Paulo Mayor) Marta Suplicy. It should be careful, however, to not allow it to disqualify those who threaten this essential right to democracy for personal characteristics, including those of an ethnic nature. Even in this extreme case, the debate should focus on the ideas.
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On Tuesday, June 17, once again the São Paulo edition of Folha replaced a photograph of a government authority in which he appears good with another which was unfavorable to his appearance. In this case, the authority is President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. If there is no journalistic reason nor a graphic for this kind of alteration, it merely shows a taunt.

To read

"Post-Human Cultures and Art - From Media Culture to Cyber-Culture," by Lucia Santaella (Paulus, 2003), starting at 34.85 reals (US $21.80)
"Liquid Language in the Era of Mobility," by Lucia Santaella (Paulus, 2007) - two excellent studies about changes in contemporary cultural environment in diverse forms that they take (46 reals, or $28.75)

To see

"Blade Runner," by Ridley Scott, with Harrison Ford (1982) - film classic brings out a future in which copies, "more human than the humans," rebel (starting at 24.90 reals, or $15.55)

Translation by John Wright