Beware mob media

For all its good intents, citizen journalism is a form of fascism waiting to happen During the past couple of years, there has been a great deal of talk about citizen journalism. It started with the idea that bloggers and others could provide worthwhile information that would add to a topic under discussion or to a news event. The Dan Rather case comes to mind. In that case, it was a blogger who said the letter

For all its good intents, citizen journalism is a form of fascism waiting to happen

During the past couple of years, there has been a great deal of talk about citizen journalism. It started with the idea that bloggers and others could provide worthwhile information that would add to a topic under discussion or to a news event.

The Dan Rather case comes to mind. In that case, it was a blogger who said the letter Rather was using to base his story on President Bush trying to avoid active duty during the Vietnam War was a fake.

Ever since then, the theory has been proposed that ordinary citizens may have something to add to news as it is regularly covered by professional journalists. Not to mention the fact that for-profit Web sites that adopt the concept get an awful lot of free content. Why care who creates your content as long as you get your page views, right?

I am not a cynic and a skeptic because I am a journalist. I admit those attributes came first and are the reason I probably was attracted to journalism. The chance to say the emperor has no clothes is my hot button.

So with that in mind, let me offer a very cynical point of view: Citizen journalism is a form of fascism waiting to happen.

Now I know fascism requires the centralization of power, and that would appear to be the opposite of citizen journalism. But think of dark historic times such as the Salem witch trials or Hitler's rise to power.

They both started with the rantings of individuals, but somehow those individuals became "thought leaders," and around them coalesced a central organization made up of like-minded individuals.

I'm saying citizen journalism, where nonprofessionals report on and write the news, will devolve over time. Citizen journalism will become a platform for so-called thought leaders to vent their biased, possibly hateful opinions. If you go to a racist Web site, of which there are plenty, you know what to expect. But when you go to a site or read a blog that wears the mantle of citizen journalism, it is another story.

If you don't think things can get turned around in a not-so-good way, let me remind you of the one tool many dictators use to perpetuate authoritarian rule: the referendum. What could be more fair? Everyone votes, and yet it turns out to be the scariest tactic of all.

So we come to the Topix Web site. The perfect example of citizen journalism in action. Topix is a local news aggregator, started with the best of intentions by Rich Skrenta, co-founder and CEO.