Mayhill Fowler seems like an extremely interesting character, according to James Rainy's "Barack Obama can thank 'citizen journalist' for 'bitter' tempest," in the LA Times a few years ago.
I don't really know what this woman is about, and I'm unsure how bad it would be to say that I've never heard of her before. With three unpublished books and her citizen journalist position for the Huffington Post, I'm guessing many are new to her name.
What I liked about Rainy's article is how he portrayed Fowler as a lifelong supporter of President Obama, but centered on her article for the Post, where she basically threw him under the bus.
After a comment Obama had made at a closed press meeting, Fowler was torn between publishing a stereotypical comment he made about America or sticking to her personal beliefs that supported him. She ended up publishing this article, throwing America's controversy up to a new level. Out of the 200 e-mails she received criticizing her article, she continued covering this beat in private because she was scared of the threats she was faced with.
I can't help but think how difficult this probably was, considering she politically is a supporter of Obama. She is going against her own belief, and being ripped apart for it.
And then I think about how great of a journalist she is. Objectivity is a dead form of writing in the field, and is being overthrown by transparency. But what is dead on paper, is necessary off. If Fowler wasn't objective about Obama's comment, and didn't publish her article for the greater good rather than what she stood for, it would have never been published.
I think this is an important lesson for future and current journalists. Times may be changing, and transparency may be the new form of writing, but it can't be the new form of decision making. Journalists still have to be objective and unbiased with the things they see and hear. Once we know what to write about, we can write it the way we want.
Transparency shouldn't take over everything. We need to keep an eye out for real news, not for what we want to the news to be.
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