SubscribeDilemma 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. Like discussed in a previous MCH article, journalists nowadays are somehow confused about the role they play in contemporary media. ‘The cult of the amateur’ is not only the title of a new book discussing self-proclaimed journalists on the web, it is also a threat to professionals, who once paid thousands of dollars for their education. But with some creativity, there are many ways to prove who is the real professional: an experiment by the BBC on YouTube is going to give background information to stories covered by traditional broadcasting. Some journalists take the chance to broadcast directly from the web, feeling that there they have more control over their own work. But still, TIME’s national editor Rick Stengel has to remind his journalists in a friendly yet pushy internal memo (Via Lost Remote):
‘We don’t own our readers or their time - we have to earn their attention and loyalty every week, every day and every hour in a media landscape that is only getting more competitive. Let’s go to work.’
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