Should advocacy organizations do journalism?

Fascinating discussion by Dan Gillmor and others recently at the Center for Citizen Media blog: Helping the Almost-Journalists Do Journalism. Excerpts:

The people who’ve done the best reporting on this scandal [the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay] have not, for
the most part, been working for major media outfits. They’ve been
working for that famous journalism organization called the American Civil Liberties Union. …

Now consider Human Rights Watch,
the mission of which is “Defending Human Rights Worldwide.” It’s
another advocacy organization that does superb reporting on the issues
it cares about and they produces media to spread its message. Take a
look, for example, at its report on Saudi Arabian domestic workers to see an exhaustively researched document on some troubling practices.

And then check out the Council on Foreign Relations “Crisis Guides” — see, for example, this one about Darfur – that provide remarkably detailed coverage of global political crises….

With just a little extra effort, they could be part of the journalistic
ecosystem too, in ways that go far beyond their traditional roles.

Dan suggests that these organizations take on the mantle of journalists and suggests: "a) listen hard to people who disagree with you; b) hunt for facts and
data that are contrary to your own stand; and c) reflect disagreements
and nuances in what you tell the rest of us."

I’m not sure I agree. It’s a fine line — advocacy organizations shouldn’t slant their findings unfairly. But as a news consumer, I don’t expect balance or nuance from the ACLU. Should it really be up to the ACLU to seek out the opinions of those who believe torture is just fine?

I think Dan’s observation about these organizations engaging in "almost journalism" is an excellent point, and an increasingly important part of the news landscape. Should they engage in fully baked journalism? I don’t necessarily think so. But it will be fascinating to see how this plays out in the years to come.

Related: Glenn Greenwald in Salon: Who is doing real journalism?

So much of the real journalism that is occurring isn’t from TV and
magazine stars but largely from severely under-paid advocates at public
interest groups and anonymous government whistle-blowers who aren’t
even meant to be "journalists." The function of the ACLU and similar
groups isn’t really to uncover illegal behavior on the part of our
Government. That is the intended function of the Congress, the media
and the opposition party. But those institutions haven’t done that —
with very rare exception, they don’t do it (and in the case of
Congress, one is hard-pressed to think of any real exceptions at all).
As a result, the ACLU and similar groups — with far fewer resources —
have been forced first to uncover what the Government does, to try
methodically and incrementally to erode the government’s wall of
secrecy, to perform real journalism, in order then to engage in their
real function of opposing Government encroachments and defending the
Constitution, basic privacy rights and civil liberties.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.