“The communications-enabled grassroots is a formidable truth squad.” writes Dan Gillmor in his book “We the Media” on page 46. There are various thoughts that immediately emerge in my post-friday night dazed brain, especially reading over the last three words: formidable, truth and squad. Since my mother tongue is German, I looked up the meaning of formidable, and found in total 14, quite differing translations, from somewhat “impressive” to “frightening”.
What is impressive and frightening about this movement? And to whom? Its ability to undermine hierarchies, Gillmor would probably reply, is frightening to all the stakeholders of such systems. And it is impressive, as I would reply, first and foremost to the movement itself. There is a certain sense of narcistic curiosity and pride underlying the word formidable, like a child, who is just about to discover her power, yet has little understanding for its limits. Accordingly, Gillmor in his book decribes the movement´s first fairly surprising successes, the Lott-downfall or the Intel-bug. After all, he published the book in 2004, one year before YouTube got started.
Lets MoveOn to the second expression, truth. That, of course, is a strong word to use. Depending on who articulates it, truth has sheer infinite ambiguous connotations, from dangerous zealousness to decent conscientousness. However, independent from the specific sense, the use of the word “truth” does formulate a claim, and makes the case for an inherent ability. We want to know the truth, and we have the means to uncover it. Again, potentially frightening for targeted systems who try to conceal the facts, impressive for the media activists behind the keyboard.
Finally, the third word, “squad”. A military term, according to the Princeton Wordnet defining the “smallest army unit”. But wait, despite the problematic paramilitary guerilla connotation, aren´t we talking about nationwide, even a worldwide network of communications-enabled grassroots? Seems like a metaphor gone wild, and an improper use of that expression in that context, in more than one dimension.
So what about the “formidable truth squad”? Me, I am impressed as frightened as well, especially if such an expression is used by a moderate representative like Gillmor. And I am worried. In my mind, the expression raises questions about accountability. How do you hold someone accountable whose identity you do not know and maybe even cannot trace? If we are not talking about professional journalism, what is the according code of conduct? Who watches the watchers? It is tempting to respond simply by “the media activist market regulates itself”, but is that not a (meanwile ancient) right-wing argument, inverted by liberals for their own means?
Fortunately, Gillmor reconstitutes the balance at the end of Chapter 6. “No matter which tools and technologies we embrace, we must maintain core principles, including fairness, accuracy, and thoroughness.” This, however, he comments on his own professional guild, not the amateurs. Gillmor argues that the former producers shall hold the former consumers, which now have become co-producers, accountable.
The squad however, to take Gillmor´s expression, are the journalists. They are the few, and they are the professionals. Their amorphous alliance are the many, the citizen activists: a militia, so to say. Although I do not have a solution that deals with the inherent problems of this constellation, I do not have the impression that Gillmor has one, either.
