Demos and de Tutor

Demos is a forward-looking think tank in the UK, focused on socio-economic and cultural issues

de Tutor is a forward-looking concierge in Dallas, Texas, bootblack to the Stars and founder of a virtual series of recovery-based revivalist seminars held in the alley.

Demos is cited in an important piece by Jay Rosen with respect to the increasingly apparent break-down of established “professional order” in many fields, not least journalism.

de Tutor, however, holds forth on what he knows works … “ordered liberty” in pursuit of the practical achievement of pragmatic goals. Using the example of amateurs swarming about an Omiyar.net grant prize, it looks like he places his faith on the “pros” getting the job done.

Demos … on the Pro-Am revolution

We learn about it from a fascinating new study, The Pro-Am Revolution, a 70-page paper from Demos in the UK. It barely mentions bloggers or journalism, and so it is perfect for sketching a larger pattern into which J-blogging fits.

The twentieth century was shaped by the rise of professionals in most walks of life. From education, science and medicine, to banking, business and sports, formerly amateur activities became more organised, and knowledge and procedures were codified and regulated. As professionalism grew, often with hierarchical organisations and formal systems for accrediting knowledge, so amateurs came to be seen as second-rate. Amateurism came to be to a term of derision. Professionalism was a mark of seriousness and high standards.

And of course this happened in journalism in the 1920s through 1940s. University training, professional societies, codes of ethics emerged. This movement created my institution, the J-school, as well as the standard of neutral, nonpartisan professionalism of which Howard Fineman spoke. Demos on the shift:

But in the last two decades a new breed of amateur has emerged: the Pro-Am, amateurs who work to professional standards. These are not the gentlemanly amateurs of old – George Orwell’s blimpocracy, the men in blazers who sustained amateur cricket and athletics clubs. The Pro-Ams are knowledgeable, educated, committed and networked, by new technology.

The twentieth century was shaped by large hierarchical organisations with professionals at the top. Pro-Ams are creating new, distributed organisational models that will be innovative, adaptive and low-cost.

In other words, they cannot be dismissed. “Knowledge, once held tightly in the hands of professionals and their institutions, will start to flow into networks of dedicated amateurs,” says the report. “The crude, all or nothing, categories we use to carve up society – leisure versus work, professional versus amateur – will need to be rethought.” Written about other fields, these words should be read into journalism, which is being hit hard by the Pro-Am trend.

Professionals – in science and medicine, war and politics, education and welfare – shaped the twentieth century through their knowledge, authority and institutions. They will still be vital in the twenty-first century. But the new driving force, creating new streams of knowledge, new kinds of organisations, new sources of authority, will be the Pro-Ams. (p. 67)

de Tutor … on the dynamics in a network of Pro-Ams

so far it as if someone had thrown a bone among a pack of hitherto well-behaved dogs, a massive scrum, and endless battle for rank and clout in the pecking order.

If the time of those involved were valued even at minimum wage, this has to be the most cost inefficient grant making process ever conceived.