WORDSPEAK
New forms of journalism
BY ANAND
A new word `Peoplerazzi" has been coined to describe citizen journalists who focus on celebrities, in catching well-known people doing ordinary things.
AT the time of the annual pilgrimage to Amarnath, an Indian television channel showed a video report about an artificial, or man-made, ice lingam being created that was recorded by an onlooker on a phone camera. "Citizen journalism" is but one of the increasingly diverse forms of news gathering and reporting. More on this later. The world of media — print, electronic or cyber — has perhaps spawned a wider range of linguistic varieties than any other medium in the realm of language. How far journalism has come, both in its various forms and from its etymological root, is worth a "story" — as they say in journalese.
Journalism, the business or practice of writing and producing a newspaper or periodical (journal), is a descendent of diurnal, from Middle English, meaning "of or pertaining to the daytime" or "occurring every day". Diurnal stems from Latin dies or day. There is no record of dies turning into the term "journalism" one fine day, as was the case with the splitting of atom or the discovery of the DNA molecule in laboratory. It was rather an outcome of a process of gradual transformation of a root word to its most current form, which is found in all languages and in which millions of speakers of that language participatory. How dies might have evolved into journalism, therefore, is worth hazarding a guess.
Jour means day in French. English borrowed a large chunk of its vocabulary from French. It would be plausible to assume that diurnal could have first transmuted into French journal before finding its way into English through a linguistic progression called metaplasm — a generic term for almost any kind of change in letters or syllables of a word, whether intentional or unintentional — the centuries-long process referred to above that bears no record or witnesses. Astute readers may notice that English remained faithful to Latin dies for its day, but chose the French connection for a daily record of events. French does the same, all terms for the days of a week have `di' in them: lundi, the day of moon; mardi, the day of planet Mars. And so on.
Examination of some other words owing allegiance to dies/diurnal/jour will bring the picture into a sharper focus. Anyone in medical profession will confirm that the circadian is something occurring or recurring "about once per day" (circa=about + dies=day). Journey in Old French meant day's work or travel, no doubt on foot or by horse. With travel at supersonic speed making any place on earth conceivably reachable in one day, the word may once again endorse its original meaning. Diet was day's wages or work, given as food or meant to buy food for the day. Diet also meant a legislative assembly in some countries, possibly meaning work done in one day at the assembly. (Diet of Worms was an imperial diet at Worms in 1521, at which Martin Luther committed himself to the cause of Protestant reform.) Adjourn, from O. Fr. ajorner, means breaking off a meeting or discussion with the intention of resuming it another jour.
CITIZEN journalism, also known as "participatory journalism" is the new kid on the journalism block. Technological progress has been inextricably linked with journalism exploring new frontiers. It began with inexpensive methods of printing that brought newspapers within the reach of even the poorest. Mechanised transportation made wide circulation feasible. Radio in 1920s and television in 1950s made it instantaneous and global.
By the end of 20th century, the Internet and high quality, portable audio-video devices had made journalism almost a subversive activity.
The term "citizen journalism", reported to have first appeared in Dan Gillmor's book We the Media of 2004, is the act of citizens playing "an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating information". It might be done for political or social motives by trained people, by activists, and by people who are typically excluded from representation in media: low-income, minorities and other marginalised groups. A new word `Peoplerazzi" has been coined to describe citizen journalists who focus on celebrities, in catching well-known people doing ordinary things.
The video report about the Amarnath lingam incident by a bystander that was passed on to a newscast was a product of circumstance. Such one-time acts of photographing or recording news events are not without their importance. One of the earliest acts of citizen journalism, a video recording of the beating of an African-American by Los Angeles policemen by a person standing in his backyard was passed on to a local news channel. It led to an overhaul of the LA police force.
Next: words about some other and lesser-known forms of journalism.
E-mail: anand@journalist.com
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