Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Citizen journalism

As Jay Rosen of NYU defined it, citizen journalism is basically when consumers of information have the tools in their hands to produce and disseminate information. Well, we do. Computers are all we need to become journalists - spreading information all over the world.
I believe this process will be largely self-regulating, as with businesses. Do a good job, prove you're a reliable source of information, and others will stick with you. Fail to be reliable and others will abandon you.
This doesn't mean it will be a smooth process. And it doesn't mean we're ready to take off into a full-fledged, successful venture where citizen journalism is a viable alternative for information on a daily basis.
A former reporter colleague of mine, Matthew D. LaPlante, made a great point recently when we were exchanging some ideas by e-mail. He said, "I think it's going to be nurtured from the ground up, preferably through the public education system."
I agree with Matt. And I hope to be a part of this nurturing in some small way.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed your post. You've put succinctly thoughts that have taken me too many paragraphs to capture. Indeed, this is an exciting time, and, while I agree with you that citizen journalism (or what I like to call communitized news) gathering and reporting has yet to supplant traditional journalism, it's a model that journos themselves will have to embrace. They'll have to lend their voices to these conversations, become integral parts of ever-shifting online communities. This emerging mesh will be largely reputation and influence driven and that you come from your town's daily or TV news team doesn't carry much weight, especially in the important 18-34 demo. In this last election cycle, it's easy to point out examples of amateur bloggers who outdid their professional counterparts at traditional media outlets. We're moving to a time where the voice of the amateur can be the more influential and thus more valuable. Chris Anderson of 'The Long Tail' fame wrote that a passionate amateur always beats a bored professional. Yes! And thanks to the Web, we'll finally get to hear some of these voices. I'd love to hear your thoughts on one of my posts on much the same topic. http://corey.wynsma.com/2008/09/17/the-communitization-of-news-and-remaining-relevant/

Anonymous said...

That may be, but video contributed by amateurs is by and large a failure. Most have no idea how to shoot or edit. The bulk of citizen-contributed video I've seen from breaking stories (storms, fires, etc.) is one unedited continuous pan and zoom--most of which doesn't even supply enough material to edit into a short clip.

mesfox said...

I will write more later, but I believe YouTube has proven amateur video to be far from a failure. Truth is, when it comes to the web, people don't expect expertly shot video.

Anonymous said...

@rainycamp I agree with you to the extent that that, for the foreseeable future, there will be a place for premium content. After all, big budget blockbuster films just can't be done by two college buddies with a pair of flipcams. (Though, as technology improves, the gap between premium and amateur content will narrow.) That being said, @mesfox is right that, if the content is compelling, people will watch regardless of the quality, and the user gets to decide what is compelling, not the publisher. Too, the ubiquity of consumer grade photo and video devices means that a news event is significantly more likely to be captured by an amateur than a professional photog dispatched by an assignment desk. The challenge, then, is connecting users to that content and making it available in a format that allows them to extract meaning.

antonio said...

I feel as though citizen journalism will be the biggest threat for online news sites. This is due to citizens having the ability to simply post news as it comes without the need of objectivity or traditional media ethics.