Citizen Journalism

Archives: Citizen Journalism

Dilemma of the Journalist, Part 2...
Posted in Citizen Journalism, Publishing, Internet, News on June 21st, 2007. By Maren Hermans.

What is the internet, if not a narcissist’s dream come true? Wired is asking its readers this week. That is a good question, and its subject is surely accompanied by another dream: the nightmare of the professional journalist. (more…)

News Shifting to the Internet (and what to do about it)...
Posted in Television, Citizen Journalism, Publishing, News on June 14th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

A recent study points out that the web will be the top news source within 5 years. Maybe that’s why Time Warner CEO is more worried about CNN than CNN.com? (more…)

Links from Last Week...
Posted in IPTV, Citizen Journalism, Music, News on May 10th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

YouTube Launches Revenue Sharing Partners Program, but no Pre-Rolls (TechCrunch)

YouTube has launched a revenue sharing Partners Program for its top content creators. (more…)

Shooting the Shooting...
Posted in Television, Citizen Journalism, Internet, News on April 26th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

Great tragedies, such as the one Virginia Tech suffered just last week, have become a way to clearly understand how deep media, journalism and communication have changed in just a few years.

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, the 2005 London bombings, the Virginia Tech shooting just a few days ago: with each of these tragedies the figure of the Citizen Reporter and the role of the Internet as a source of information and communication are becoming an stronger, integral part in the news making process.

In this recent case, it was the video of student Jamal Albarghouti that offered one of the first documents of the shooting at Virginia Tech. A public debate was immediately raised about citizen journalism, authenticity and authority, and the protection of victims.

One of the things the Virginia Tech massacre showed us, from a communication point of view, is the value Citizen Reporters may bring to news making and how today, sometimes, the journalist isn’t the fastest and most reliable news source: " onclick="javascript:urchinTracker('/outbound/www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.media17apr17_0_7252873.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines_br_/');">social networking sites (Via PicturePhonning), like Facebook or MySpace were. In such dramatic, unexpected and immediate situations, traditional media is increasingly adapting the role pointing and getting out of the way.

´We live public lives on the web now.´ said Jeff Jarvis in CNNs Reliable Sources. In the case of the Virginia Tech shooting, that means the aura of the first hand reports of students, coupled with their newly achieved power to speak for themselves opens a discussion which can actually help to redefine the role of journalism nowadays, and brings a wider dimension to the discourse of power and media.

Co-written with Maren Hermans.

Don’t Speak. Point!...
Posted in Citizen Journalism, Internet, News on April 17th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

Bruno Giussani published an excellent article on Lunch over IP about the future role of journalists and editors. In a world of Citizen Journalism, the role of editors and journalists is to become information facilitators, organizers and coaches. Their role becoming many times to “Point to people and get out of the way”.

Giussani explains how “old media” and “new media” aren’t antagonistic and as they are exploring how to best complement each other, they are changing inside out while at it. How will media look in the future? Giussani gives 3 example properties future media will have: Assembled media (the ability to potentially connect any media to any other media), the Read-Write Media (consumers participating and transforming media) and The Media as Places (changing the idea that a newspaper or a TV channel is a product to the idea that it’s a place).

Assigment Zero to test Pro-Am Journalism...
Posted in Citizen Journalism, News on March 20th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

Last wednesday Wired News launched Assignment Zero an open-platform reporting project that will test a Pro-Am approach to journalism:

a mix of professional and amateur talent. Some formatting, some freestyling. Some things decided by editors, others left to participants. We don’t know what the optimal mix is yet.

Here’s wired article about it, and here’s some highlights of what people are saying about Assignment Zero so far.

News, Journalists & Citizens...
Posted in Citizen Journalism, Publishing, Reports, News on March 13th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

According to the State of the News Media report (Via Micro Persuasion), the news industry needs a new economic model. Last year’s decline in newspaper circulation seems to confirm this. Some newspapers are doing better than others, for example the Financial Time’s integrated newsroom seems to be paying off and the USA Today new website is attracting thousands of members. All in all, out of all the traditional media outlets, and as we reported before, it’s the publishing industry who is leading in innovation on news. Journalists themselves, Cyberjournalist reports, are starting to make TV.

On the other hand, Citizen Journalists, or at least French Citizen Journalists, seemed to have it harder: France approved a law making it illegal for non journalists to capture and distribute videos of violent acts. Later on, upon reading the actual text of this law, Lost Remote reader confirmed the law was limited to acts of violence done in order to be filmed and broadcast. It’s surprising though that of all countries France passed a law that proposes a “certification system” to label “government approved sources of information”.

Finding a successful User Created Content formula...
Posted in Citizen Journalism, News on February 19th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

Ideas such as “User Generated Content”, “We the Media” or “Citizen Reporterism”, as powerful as they are, and as well as they match what we understand the Internet to be, haven’t been truly successful with traditional media. What’s wrong?

The following two articles highlight a couple of ideas of what might be happening. At their core, the articles are about truly understanding what people generated contents are, why they are created in the first place and why they should be treated traditionally created contents regarding basic things such as content authorship recognition and compensation. In this regard, the Associated Press plan on Citizen Journalism is much better than Reuters and Yahoo’s “You Witness”.

User Generated Content isn’t free (CyberJournalist)

One thing everyone forgets about “We Media” (The Long Tail)

The year of the Citizen Reporter...
Posted in Citizen Journalism, News on January 28th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.

Offering solutions to become a Citizen Reporter, or as YouTube would put it, to “Broadcast Yourself”…

Everyone is doing it: the BBC, Sky News, CNN, Reuters….the list doesn’t end.

This last week was Vodafone’s turn. The company plans to offer a new mobile video service that will let their Vodafone Live! subscribers upload and watch contents from each other.

Looking at it from a news point of view (entertainment wise, YouTube is already king), current solutions are not good enough. Where you might have an excellent distribution platform (such as with Yahoo/Reuters), you might as well forget about your attribution or compensation rights. Minimum compensation solutions, such as Vodafone’s are limited to their Live! platform subscribers. Scoop it! news agencies solutions might pay you and attribute your work to you, plus they might be able to distribute your contents pretty well, but they only work with absolutely great shots, leaving most daily coverage to the trash bin…

Much like 2006 was the year of Internet Video, maybe 2007 becomes the year a current or a new Citizen Reporter platform fixes it’s weaknesses and becomes a reference to aspiring Citizen Reporters and video bloggers…and ultimately the next “YouTube success story”.

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