Journalism is dead. Long live the Teapot.

I hereby pronounce journalism dead. Its Teapot Takeover Time.
Oh man. I am going to piss off some friends with this post. But provoke, I hope it will!

In fact - who am I to write a post anyway? I’m no journo. I’m a visual communication designer who is sick of designing because its a superficial way to bring positive change the world. Now I use my design skills to problem solve in ways that catalyze meaningful connections between people and enable powerful things to emerge. Everyone knows that designers can’t spell or punctuate. And exaggerate horribly for effect. I make an awful writer. You really should leave this blog immediately.

But here you are - for what ever reason. Here I am - ready to read the last rights to one of the most powerful forces that we have known in recent civilisation. And you are curious…so you read on.

Here’s my case:
The media is inextricably linked with business through ads.
Big news headlines > sell newspapers > sell ads.

Impartiality as a key journalistic value has been lost. Our government trying to privatize our public radio station is evidence enough of that. Thus, reducing journalists to a bunch of people whose success is measured by demonstrating the ability to create the most sensation and impact with a by-line. And of course, to create this kind of impact - one has to speak single-mindedly. There is no room to present the story with any hope of wholeness or integrity. Besides, column inches are rationed - to ensure enough room for the ads. To pay the journalists and generate profit for the company. This model is too small for the exploding world multiple truths and views that the internet has paved the way for.

This is not a time for simplistic views or single minded propositions. No way. This is time for The Teapot. Teapot theory is a model that was used in my house when we were children to settle our disagreements. There were 4 opinionated children, all raised self-righteously who knew to make a solid argument. My father is a human-rights lawyer, after all. The battles were epic. My mother, frazzled after hours of bickering would call us to order and demand that we sit around the table. She would push paper and pen into our hands and plonk The Teapot in front of us. She would demand that we draw it. Then she would collect up all the peices of paper and lay them out in front of her. “What is this?!” she would say indignantly. “I asked you to draw the teapot. The same teapot that you see in front of you”. We would look around at each other, rolling our eyes with sour faces looking like slapped asses. “These are all different. Megan - you drew the handle on the left - Jamie drew it on the right. Daniel drew something round that hasn’t a handle visible at all. Are you sure you were all looking at the same teapot?”. Then we would return to our play or chores, determined never to argue again lest we had to draw the friggin’ teapot one more time.

I’d like to hereby welcome you to the Age of The Teapot.

How did I learn about the Oil Spill? On Twitter. There I was, working away, and up came the first Tweet:
“Oil Spill. help me. Planet Earth!”
And then I learned of the magnitude:
‘23-Mile Stretch of Florida Waters Closed for Fishing Because of Oil Spill’
I could watch it real time, any time i wanted:
“BP webcam of Gulf oil spill. Watch live: http://on.cnn.com/cnndcl3”
I learned that they happen all the time:
“9000 Oil Spill - The Oil Spills You Never Heard Of http://is.gd/cPZH0”
And that some people were even questioning whether it was an accident:
“BP Oil Spill > intentional “false flag” event? http://bit.ly/bxD iFp”

All of a sudden, I had a rush of blood to my head as The Teapot scenario flashed up in my memory. We were not creating media. We were mediating. Instead of broadcasting a single event to millions of eyes, a million eyes were telling the story of a single event and that this struck me as being one of the most powerful shifts of all time. I was learning in real time, experiencing multiple truths first hand. Experiencing humanity as a single entity of consciousness and observation.

Ok - so this is the birth of something. What we know about newborns is that they are a bit useless and they don’t know very much. They need to be nurtured and they need to learn how to walk before they can become useful, let alone masterful. I know that it is a bit shit to say that Twitter is the new face of media. Especially when Twitter is predominantly used to follow Britney Spears. But I have glimpsed its potential, and I can never close my eyes to that. The world I am seeing is one where people create and share access to the information that they care about. Transparency. That’s what we are talking about. A world where there are fewer secrets and fewer corporate interests controlling how information is shaped and fed to us. And its no lie that information is power.

The fight is on to dominate the social media. Every business seems to be gunning for it right now. But it turns out that the most important thing that Twitter gives us is not just its offering - but what it asks of us. It asks us to polish up our critical analysis skills. It asks us: “who do we trust to give us information” and “can I become a trusted source of information?”. I like that. Anyway, thanks for sticking it out. Unlike a newspaper, you can now tell me what you think.