Dalton Camp lecture addresses changing media landscape

There’s three reasons Wikimedia’s Sue Gardner believes now is the golden age of journalism.

“There’s more information available to us, it is less censored and it is ridiculously cheap and easy to get,” said Gardner, who gave the seventh annual Dalton Camp Lecture in Journalism last week.

Gardner’s lecture focused on the changing landscape of media, and the future of traditional media. Her message for current and future journalists alike was an optimistic one that encouraged embracing new media instead of lamenting the loss of traditional media.

Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, explained the role her organization plays in a changing media landscape.

The Wikimedia Foundation operates the online, user-driven encyclopaedia Wikipedia, one of the world’s 10 most popular websites.

But despite its popularity, Wikipedia faces criticism, one of the major ones being that there is too much information out there to sort through, and there’s too great of a chance for error.

Gardner thinks it is a matter of self-filtering to find the valuable information.

“We are going to get used to the idea that there is a lot more stuff available to us than we could ever possibly read,” she said. “That’s a good problem to have, and it’s one that we will adapt to over time.”

Because Wikipedia is user-generated, the quality of Wikipedia as a source is often questioned.

“Wikipedia is vulnerable to vandalism,” admits Gardner. “But about half of the vandalism is reverted immediately, and the other half is usually cleaned up within a couple of days or a couple of weeks.

“I would say that part of the strength of Wikipedia is actually that ability to self correct. For Brittanica, they have to wait until they are publishing another edition until they can fix [mistakes].”

While new media players like Wikipedia operate differently than traditional outlets, contributors to both new and old media have the same aim in mind, said Gardner. They both want to serve the reader.

The internet allows anonymity that is not usually allowed in traditional media. Gardner, who was named a new media game changer by the Huffington Post, believes anonymity fixes a problem that has been facing journalism for a long time.

“Anonymity, decentralized production and production by volunteers has the effect of making information systems stronger rather than weaker,” said Gardner. “It fixes an old brokenness that is bad for journalism.”

While Gardner did draw a fine crowd, she was initially worried that the topic she was speaking on may confuse annual Camp lecture attendees who are less familiar with new media.

“I was a little bit worried that we might have people in the audience who aren’t very familiar with this terrain,” said Gardner, who tried to “demystify technology” for those in the audience that might be less familiar with some of the tools she was referencing.

The lecture series was created in memory of Dalton Camp, a well-known New Brunswick political journalist, and is funded by Camp’s endowment.

The Dalton Camp Lecture is broadcast each year on CBC Radio One’s Ideas program. Gardner’s lecture will be broadcast on Nov. 26.