Is Citizen Journalism Useful or Important?
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I see news stories and tidbit phenomena almost daily about citizen journalism (a.k.a. participatory media and many other titles). Normal, everyday people who have no journalistic base have been technologically and psychologically enabled by the Internet to become citizen journalists. What has it meant so far, and where do you think it could go from here? Are traditional news organizations doomed to extinction when citizen journalism reaches critical mass, or how must those traditional mainstream media organizations evolve to survive?
Citizen journalism started with ordinary people posting information on their personal websites, which shifted to using blog platforms to enable reader comments. Reader commenting technologies quickly created asynchronous but vibrant conversations. You are seeing and interacting with these technologies firsthand here at IdahoFallz.com, and regulars here have already realized how sharing information can help us all become better informed.
I think it is important to note the difference between citizen editorial control and citizen-generated journalism. Websites like Digg and Yahoo! Buzz use citizen editorial control, which enable the wisdom of the crowds to find and promote stories which are often passed over by the mainstream media outlets. People who feel the news does not report the real news are enjoying Digg and Buzz quite a bit, because you can find great stories unreported by MSM and you can sometimes read stories a couple days before the mainstream media decide to report them.
So citizen editorial control is different and distinct from citizen-generated journalism and media. One idea differs from mainstream media in deciding what stories to promote the most, and the other idea is about creating amateur stories which may or may not get promoted. Citizen media can be simply stories, writing articles on topics or news such as we do at IdahoFallz.com. Citizen media can also be news analysis, trying to make sense of what is happening in the news, which we also do here at IFz but which is practiced widely on Sunday mornings of all mainstream media outlets. Citizen media can also be video and audio, captured by ordinary people who happen to get lucky and catch something important, or who decide to become investigative reporters themselves.
We see examples of this when people record customer service calls to major corporations, or videotape officials performing wrongdoings. The Seattle World Trade Organization riots became a flashpoint for citizen journalism, as ordinary people captured video of Seattle police going overboard on protesters. Citizen journalists have the ability to get to places that mainstream media journalists just cannot.
Do you feel you have participated in citizen journalism on this site or other sites? How was your experience? Do you feel Idaho Falls mainstream media outlets do enough to enable citizen journalism in their “products”? Do you think they should do this, and how could they try?
Do you feel citizen journalism needs boundaries and ethical pledges to stay trustworthy? Should a credentials system be instituted for citizen journalists, or do you think citizen journalism should always be approached with a skeptical mind?
There are numerous directions and topics in this subject, but I wanted to start by asking what do you think about citizen journalism?
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Comments
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0 I’m really glad you put that video in. This is a fascinating forum. Blogging is the latest in a long line of journalism formats.
I think there’s a difference between personal blogs and public blogs. I have a personal blog. I talk about personal things, I talk about when I’m happy, sad, angry, or puzzled. Normal crap. But I don’t write pithy things, nothing that folks who don’t know me would feel compelled to read on a regular basis. I’m pretty sure that only my family visits my site, and they are the only ones who comment.
The IFz site is a way for me to find others’ opinions, a wide range of folks from different points of the political spectrum, yet still related to me in a way because it’s locally-focused. It’s at times a blog within a blog (as John Dvorak mentioned that some sites turn into with the comments between the regulars). To me, this site is more of a citizen journalism format than my personal blog is.
Dvorak says that as a blogger I’m a citzen journalist, just by the nature of blogging. Hmm. Maybe so, but I definitely write for a niche market.
Hee hee. I’m at the libel discussion toward the end. Actually, it’s pretty sound advice to be careful about what you say or how you say it.
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0 0 I also liked this article about citizen journalism:
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/09/digging_deeperyour_guide_to_ci.html
The biggest points for me were:
There is some controversy over the term citizen journalism, because many professional journalists believe that only a trained journalist can understand the rigors and ethics involved in reporting the news. And conversely, there are many trained journalists who practice what might be considered citizen journalism by writing their own blogs or commentary online outside of the traditional journalism hierarchy.
and
One of the main concepts behind citizen journalism is that mainstream media reporters and producers are not the exclusive center of knowledge on a subject — the audience knows more collectively than the reporter alone.
I liked the historical discussion of citizen journalism, starting in Revolutionary times with Thomas Paine publishing the Federalist Papers.
The article also points out several incidents of citizen journalism affecting our world, like Trent Lott’s leadership resignation and Dan Rather’s fake document blunder.
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0 0 Anyone read “The Death and Life of American Newspapers”?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/31/080331fa_fact_alterman?currentPage=all
Few believe that newspapers in their current printed form will survive. Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable just four years ago.
Do you think newspapers are on their way out? I think print newspapers are on their way out, but that won’t happen until the Baby Boomer generation gets put into rest homes. The article notes that average newspaper reader age is 55 and aging. I get all of my news in digital form, and I think the digital trend will not stop.
Some people suggest blogs are the future of “news”, but blogs often just echo the primary news sources, unless citizen journalism really takes off.
This idea could have also gone into the other current discussion on “how not to be stupid about technology” because in a way the death knell for newspapers is related to an old-school mindset that fails to adapt to the digital age. Look at how Craigslist is decimating newspaper revenues. Our local Post Register has survived so far, but the local Craigslist has also just started a few months ago.
I don’t use Twitter, but I have heard that more people are discovering breaking news the fastest through Twitter. If this is true, then perhaps news outlets like the Post Register should be issuing their breaking news alerts via Twitter in addition to emails and text messages.
How can primary news journalism survive or evolve?
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0 0 The primary news sources locally are broadcast tv, or print. (I guess the radio sources should count but from what I hear they are merely repeating what they read in the paper, or get from the wire, so they are not out there discovering and covering the news.)
They need to come into the digital world on the web, which they are attempting (albeit not gracefully, yet, but maybe they’ll evolve).
But those of us who would like to know the local news…what is it that we truly want? Do we want the short blurb/video, or do we want some backstory?
I’m an old fogie, and I’d like backstory. But I’m wondering, those of you from generations X and Y, would you rather have just the blurbs? Or would you rather have the you-tube snippets of video?
I also like print, not video. I read 1200 words/minute and can get through an awful lot of print at one setting. The video above lasted an hour and I had to force myself to sit through it. (Although I’m glad I did.) Normally, I’d have preferred to read a transcript.
It’s interesting that due to the web and millions of options available, a news source can’t just dictate what way they will present the news and not care about our preferences, because they will die a quick death if they tried that.
So, it’s hard to redefine yourself as a news medium when you’re not sure what your audience will want.
I guess the quick answer is to throw a little of all the formats out there and see what gets the majority of the hits, and focus on that type of presentation as a primary format.
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0 0 Is news doomed to be reduced to Red news vs. Blue news?
What does it mean to our American democracy as our news media shifts to citizen journalism?
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0 0 Can’t be any worse that the supposed objective media is now…..I found it interesting that Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a Hillary backer, told Politico.com that FOX News was the most fair and objective of the news organizations to this point. Rendell said FOX treated them better than MSNBC even did.
The fact that Saturday Night Live was able to do a spoof….that was actually pretty true about NBC being in the tank for Obama shows me that citizen journalism can go a very long way to keeping them honest (as Anderson Cooper likes to say). The establishment news media sources could use some good old fashioned competition to keep them on their toes and paying attention to stories that regular people care about.
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0 0 I agree with Mike, citizen journalism can’t be any worse than what we have now (other than maybe a little less civil, but that’s getting to be less and less of a given…)
I like the idea that folks have a venue that’s almost free and unfettered. Before, it was very difficult to get your story out if no one in the mainstream control was interested in it.
Now it can be viral in hours.
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0 0 I don’t think it’s as much citizen “journalism” as it is citizen “opinion”. 9 out of 10 times, your average citizen isn’t going to know enough about a particular topic, story, crime etc. to be able to report about it in a non-biased manner. This is why we have millions of blog sites out there, as opposed to millions of “news” sites. I don’t see newspapers being obsolete anytime soon. More often than not, most people are working or doing other things during their daily lives, and don’t have time to spend researching and finding out all the facts of a particular story. Which is why we all sit on here each day and offer our “opinions” & “points of view” on a subject that has already been talked about in the media. Granted, there will be times when a citizen catches a newsworthy story on tape, but how often does that person usually take the time to dig deeper and find out ALL the facts of what they just shot?? Not too often. Most of the time the footage is sold to the highest bidder and/or put on YouTube or some other blog site with that citizens interpretation of what they filmed with no real in depth “journalism” going on.
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0 0 I think of journalism and news sources as first hand sources, and the place where the public gets their information. These sites (and personal blogs) are the responses by the public to those news sources.
CR67 is right, we react to what we read/see elsewhere. How often do we actually report (and do all the digging) on an actual news story in these forums?
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0 0 I think this sums up blogs and the MSM pretty well:
http://www.unclejayexplains.com/2007/09/24/uncle-jay-explains-the-news-september-24-2007/
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0 0 What about citizen journalist ethics? For example, identification? Do professional journalists always identify themselves when they investigate a story? Should citizen journalists?
Take for one example an Apple blogger who is also a shareholder. He attended an Apple shareholder’s meeting recently, and asked many questions which he later blogged about on his Apple blog. Reporters are not normally allowed at these shareholder’s meetings, and this person did not identify himself as an Apple blogger. Did he cross an ethical line by doing this?
It is traditional that journalists are not supposed to own stock in companies they report about, because of the conflict of interest in story bias. However, is this enforced in the journalism world, and how? Should bloggers or “citizen journalists” take similar pledges, or put up their financial information to prove they do not own stock in companies they write about? I always thought this idea was lame, because a reporter can show they don’t own stock, but their spouse may own all the stock.
And what about presenting obvious bias? An Apple blogger is invariably an Apple fanboy who hangs their Apple adoration out on their sleeves at all times. They may grumble about some things, but they will plunk down many dollars when the new, overpriced Apple products come out. Since these kind of citizen journalists are upfront and honest about their bias, doesn’t it fit with their “job” that they own company stock?
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0 0 Ethics are a huge issue for citizen journalists and bloggers. We expect them from commercial/professional sources, but we don’t really think of them in context with the blog.
Interesting point. I’ll have to think on that.
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John Dvorak and Om Malik are two old-school journalists who have transitioned to new media quite well. Both blog and podcast heavily, and both seem to recognize changes in the mainstream media landscape that the mainstream media themselves do not. This video was a discussion they had last year at WordCamp San Francisco about blogging vs. journalism.
What do you think of the points they made?