SubscribeOn duties, dazzle and danger of Citizen Journalism
Posted in Citizen Journalism, Publishing, Long Tail, Reports, Advertising, News on July 5th, 2007. By Maren Hermans.
Citizen reporters can help to improve the work of traditional journalists. But without an organizing and overlooking element, is there a risk for the credibility and authority of news?
The release of the iPhone showed once again what we already realized: The user knows better. He knows that it can eventually take 40 hours to make the phone work. He knows how it feels like to have it. Eventually, he knows how to hack it.
So what is the value of the journalist reporting about it, if he was not standing in line and giving high fives to Apple Store employees? And if he was, it is rather his expertise as a user than as a journalist that authorizes him to speak about it. USA Today showed how a collaboration with consumers can look like. It needed a cry for help and consumers were willing to share their first hand iPhone-experience. A similar strategy worked for Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza: 40 000 citizen reporters helped to review the medical situation for birth-giving parents in Poland, Special Project Editor Grzegorz Piechota announced proudly. What sounds like something that would be mentioned in the Guiness book of records, was still orchestrated by journalists involved in the story…But what if you erase the organizing element? Here we come to another side of Citizen Journalism: Blogging. In an almost sentimental piece, Mark Cuban is wondering about credibility and authority of blogs. Especially in times where “the story is the asset” and traditional media are actually using blogs as source of information, and bloggers keep referring and referring to each other: it seems like the dog bit in his tail and keeps now spinning around. And in between this painful rotation, another source is not able to help: an article in the New York Times (via Cyber Journalist) reports how Wikipedia is actually used as a journalistic source, even though it was never meant to be one.
Also Steve Boriss worries about blogging; and the ethical site of it. His article opens a discussion about ethical values in both, online and offline journalism.
Another combination of these two forms of news-making is now made by the Swedish format of Metro: the newspaper is offering to pay bloggers who are going to write under their sails. Like this, they try to improve their ability to advertise online. That’s all about time, as it seems like the days of classified ads in traditional media are going to be over soon.
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I believe the value of Citizen Reporters is based on their value as citizens as you say… But can citizens cover a breaking news? What else do they give to the story? What if ENGs where now groups of 3: camera, journalist and citizen?
Comment by Amanda Leslie on July 9, 2007