Citizen journalism needs citizen journalists.
In the Guardian recently, George Monbiot wrote a call to arms for citizen journalism. The gist of it was that he had been 40 years in the game before he was forced “to accept the bleeding obvious: you cannot speak truth to power if power controls your words.” He then made an impassioned call for citizens to get out from underneath that power.
We are reminded of the malignancy of that power in the current ITV drama The Hack where the bully boys and girls of the Murdoch empire are shown in all their lurid cruelty. Monbiot senses, however, that perhaps the ground is shifting. Citizen journalism is flowering, he writes, through a whole host of innovative outlets and titles now flourishing around the country. He name checks 19 titles and right at the top of them is the Bylines Network.
For us here at Sussex Bylines, as a part of this network, it is tremendously encouraging to get this recognition but it has to be said that, despite the great progress we have made, we, and probably most of the other titles, are still at the beginning of a long journey.
As we look into the uncertain future, with the right seeming to be rising inexorably, we nevertheless feel that, given greater numbers of volunteers, we will be able to build on what we have already achieved and thus weather the storms that will come.
Building community
In short, we need more people to come forward with stories and ideas, more people submitting material, more people to help with the other necessary tasks, more people to try their hand at editing and proofreading. We need more people willing to shout from the metaphorical rooftops, to take up the megaphone that we can hold for them. Many of our readers do give all sorts of valuable support, and lots of enthusiasm, but we want more copy and more shoulders to the wheel.
We are trying to build a community that will reflect our values, be creative, proactive, and inclusive, and we know there are lots of people ready to join us. But after three years of pushing the boulder uphill, we sometimes gets a little reflective. Why are we not going faster? What are we not doing right? This got me to thinking about why people write (or not as the case may be).
I remember as a student journalist you couldn’t get into the office for wannabe Woodward and Bernsteins banging down their stories, arguing their corner, demanding the front page. But now, at the local level at least, say here where I am in Brighton, there are myriad stories to research and write up and yet people are not doing it. There is pretty much an open door and yet too few people are walking through. There is barely a commercial local media to have to compete with now so what’s the issue? Is everybody out shopping? Are they glued to Celebrity Traitors? Are they partying like it’s 1999?
I reflected on why I write. And of course I didn’t have to think about that for very long before stumbling again on George Orwell and his 1946 essay “Why I Write”. It’s a piece which explores his personal journey to becoming a writer and everyone with any inclination in that direction would benefit from reading it carefully.
Why should I write?
The great man lists “four motives for writing” which he feels exist in every writer albeit in different proportions. They are: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. Let’s take a look.
Sheer egoism: Orwell argues that a writer follows a “desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood.” Does that include me? Of course it does. And all you aspiring writers out there? Come on, put your hands up.
Aesthetic enthusiasm: Orwell observes that most writers want to make their writing look good, taking “pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story.” He says this is present in all works of writing. Does that include me? Yes.
Historical impulse: This is the “desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.” This one is easy as everybody who writes for Sussex Bylines will tell you. We may not have all the writers we would want but the ones we do have are all trying to tell their story and lodge it in the collective consciousness.
I learned this ages ago from the little bit of academic writing I did over the years. I knew that only a handful of people would read my work, but I consoled myself by thinking of the leopard in Jorge Luis Borges’ great story who is remembered for putting a word into “a poem which has its exact place in the weft of the universe.” God tells the leopard “You suffer captivity, but you shall have given a word to the poem.” From there I can jump to something the great philosopher Dan Dennet once said: “If you want to be immortal, learn HTML.” These days, of course, you don’t need to learn HTML as WordPress (and Sussex Bylines) will do it for you.
Political purpose: Orwell’s fourth motive is the “desire to push the world in a certain direction” that he believes every person has to some degree. Certainly, the Bylines Network, a collection of 10 titles, is clear on this. We intend to: “Demonstrate democracy in action by giving a voice to local people and holding our elected representatives to account. This is made possible by our independence – both from government control and from the influence of corporate interests.”
The two Georges
Of course, as yet, we at Sussex Bylines are not George Orwell or George Monbiot or even Nick Davies but we have run an impressive gamut of original stories and we have the potential to do much more than we currently do. We have the platform and people are reading us and watching us (if not yet enough).
Orwell claims he “might have remained almost unaware of [his] political loyalties”, but that he had been “forced into becoming a sort of pamphleteer” because his era was a dangerous one. Well, we are in a dangerous era, too. We’ve got Climate change, Gaza, Ukraine, desperate refugees crossing the channel in rubber dinghies, corporates taking over the NHS, Sussex running out of water, the sea awash with sewage and microplastic pollution. On and on it goes.
So no pressure readers, but we need you to get off the sofa and start getting some stories down. Come and be part of our efforts. There are a lot of tasks we need to do to get this citizen journalism initiative running more forcefully, but at our Sussex level we need volunteers pure and simple.
And as luck would have it here is an initiative to help you get started. Bylines Network is running a live roundtable with special guests, including George Monbiot, “to explore how citizen action, storytelling, and civic engagement can hold back authoritarianism and build a better, more hopeful future. Sign up now!
Don’t be shy, it’s not so hard. If it needs your sheer egoism to get motivated there will be nobody here objecting. One word follows another (most of the time). Everybody has a story. And even without leaving Sussex there are a million stories to tell.
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