"Citizen Journalism"

[tapintoamerica]

Note the use of quote marks. This is the newest oxymoron in our culture.
What I find disturbing is the number of real journalists who are so fascinated by this concept that they give it a hint of legitmacy. Why should anybody with a job in this business be aiding and abetting the enemy? Would the UAW endorse technological advancements that would ultimately render its members unemployed?

 

[Write-brained]

Do you mean blogs?

Our paper trumpets the local blogs on our website. Gets the website major hits. Most of them aren't producing news, just commenting on it. Don't see the big deal.

 

[Dyno]

I first started to notice the term during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. CNN was urging its viewers to send in their photos, eyewitness accounts, etc. to CNN.com and become "citizen journalists." I'm not a journalist and hated the term immediately. I still do.

 

[Walter Burns]

Note the use of quote marks. This is the newest oxymoron in our culture.
What I find disturbing is the number of real journalists who are so fascinated by this concept that they give it a hint of legitmacy. Why should anybody with a job in this business be aiding and abetting the enemy? Would the UAW endorse technological advancements that would ultimately render its members unemployed?

Don't tell me...you work for a Gannett paper, right? I do, and our EE liked to throw the term around a LOT.
Theoretically, it encourages community involvement by allowing them to send us their news.
Theoretically, socialism works too.
In practice, it's just an excuse for the powers that be (and it's typically not the real journalists who think this is a good idea; it's the beancounters at the top or the people determined to take the path of least resistance) to get content without paying for it.

 

[tapintoamerica]

No, I don't work for Gannett, but I do agree with Walter Burns.

 

[HejiraHenry]

"citizen journalism" is so 2006.

now it's "user generated content."

next year, "google implants."

 

[writing irish]

"citizen journalism" is so 2006.

now it's "user generated content."

next year, "google implants."

Post of the evening.

 

[Diabeetus]

If outlets are smart, they'll use it to supplement their coverage and create better and a more in-depth product. I doubt most would use it in that manner, though, so...

 

[EE94]

has anybody ever read "citizen journalism?"
There's a reason we go to school to train for this stuff.

 

[sirvaliantbrown]

Note the use of quote marks. This is the newest oxymoron in our culture.
What I find disturbing is the number of real journalists who are so fascinated by this concept that they give it a hint of legitmacy. Why should anybody with a job in this business be aiding and abetting the enemy? Would the UAW endorse technological advancements that would ultimately render its members unemployed?

This is utterly nonsensical. "The enemy," in your opinion, is...the guy with a cell-phone camera who films a police beating while walking his dog? That guy is the "citizen journalist" to which CNN, however clumsily, refers. How, in your opinion, is the use of his footage illegitimate? Why should we not encourage non-reporters to send us stuff?

I do think CNN makes too much of its "citizen journalists" - their relentless hype of that Barghouti kid who shot grainy, unhelpful footage of a SWAT team doing not-so-much during the Virginia Tech massacre was ridiculous. But as long as we don't talk about "citizen journalism" as some sort of coming revolution, what is your substantive problem with it?

 

[sirvaliantbrown]

Do you mean blogs?

Our paper trumpets the local blogs on our website. Gets the website major hits. Most of them aren't producing news, just commenting on it. Don't see the big deal.

Oh. I guess you could've meant blogs as well. Still: don't toss out the baby with the bathwater. During Bush's Social Security privatization initiative, Josh Marshall of talkingpointsmemo.com got his readers to find out the stances of every (if I remember correctly) senator and representative. What's wrong with that? During the peak of the Gonzales mess, dozens of his readers - many of them highly educated lawyers, professors, etc. etc. - divided up a giant Department of Justice "document dump" so as to be able to thoroughly comb through it in more than, like, a week. I don't remember if they found anything; if they did, of course, the "real journalist," Marshall, would have to corroborate it himself. But what's illegitimate about his use of reader-experts to seek out legitimate news stories? Provided that the real journalists provide proper oversight of their readers' efforts, I don't see the issue.

Finally: you mentioned the UAW. I look at this from a validity/legitimacy/reader-benefit perspective, not from a will-this-cost-us-jobs perspective. I don't think reporters should decide whether to treat any social phenomenon as legitimate or illegitimate based on the phenomenon's potential impact on reporters.

 

[tapintoamerica]

My problem is more with newspapers seeking out private citizen to do our work than it is with bloggers or cell-phone photographers.

 

[Diabeetus]

My problem is more with newspapers seeking out private citizen to do our work than it is with bloggers or cell-phone photographers.

Pretty sure people are smart enough to know/notice the difference in quality. I have enough faith in readership for that.

As for them existing, I guess it leads back to your definition of journalism as to whether you're comfortable calling them journalists.

 

[captzulu]

I'm ok with user-submitted videos, pics, etc. My main concern with applying the term "citizen journalism" to bloggers and such is that almost all of them present their information to prove their own particular point of view. There is no obligation for a blogger to be impartial or fair or objective. People can talk about journalists' innate bias and how influences the way they present news, but at least journalists are trained and obligated to present both sides of the issue, and when they fail to do so, there is a system there to hold them accountable. A blogger who only has to answer to himself has no such obligation, and I'm concerned that many readers AREN'T smart enough to distinguish between the two, especially with the whole "liberal media bias" rant going around. An average reader who doesn't know about the daily operation of a newspaper might think there's little difference between a journalist and a blogger. The key issue for me isn't so much the ability of citizen journalists to write about news events, but rather their accountability.

 

[sirvaliantbrown]

I'm ok with user-submitted videos, pics, etc. My main concern with applying the term "citizen journalism" to bloggers and such is that almost all of them present their information to prove their own particular point of view. There is no obligation for a blogger to be impartial or fair or objective. People can talk about journalists' innate bias and how influences the way they present news, but at least journalists are trained and obligated to present both sides of the issue, and when they fail to do so, there is a system there to hold them accountable. A blogger who only has to answer to himself has no such obligation, and I'm concerned that many readers AREN'T smart enough to distinguish between the two, especially with the whole "liberal media bias" rant going around. An average reader who doesn't know about the daily operation of a newspaper might think there's little difference between a journalist and a blogger. The key issue for me isn't so much the ability of citizen journalists to write about news events, but rather their accountability.

Reporters offer impartial news. Bloggers - like columnists - offer opinion and analysis. Not scary, man. In the marketplace of ideas, the more the merrier; let's let the marketplace decide who's full of crap and who isn't.

 

[Riddick]

Are you kidding me? Let the marketplace decide? Staff sizes are shrinking and more of these "citizen journalists" are popping up to fill the void.
Right now, i think this is primarily a problem at Gannett papers, but upper management doesn't care that the every day person doesn't want to read a story written by Bob the Farmer. Management just cares about the bottom line.

 

[Peytons place]

"Citizen journalists" are probably easy to come by because so many people think they have something important to say. I don't mind some reader input, and I think readers enjoy it, but it is ridiculous to think any Joe off the street would make a good journalist. I know I wouldn't want my appendix removed by a "citizen doctor."

 

[Stitch]

"Citizen journalist" = someone with way too much time on their hands

 

[Editude]

The Washington Post is doing its hyperlocal/citizen approach in Loudon with staffers, but most companies are relying on local yokels to tell their tales. Buddy of mine works at one of the industry's leaders in this arena, and he says there are good and bad aspects of it. It is different than blogging, which is more commenting; some citizens do report, on their own level.

 

[sirvaliantbrown]

"Citizen journalists" are probably easy to come by because so many people think they have something important to say. I don't mind some reader input, and I think readers enjoy it, but it is ridiculous to think any Joe off the street would make a good journalist. I know I wouldn't want my appendix removed by a "citizen doctor."

For sure for sure. It's a valid point. But what I think newspaper-employed journalists - not you specifically, Peytons - get wrong most of the time is the nature of the reading public. True, many of the people who read our sports sections are idiots. But when we're reporting on, say, medicine or international law, a small subset of our readers will inevitably know far more than we do. We should encourage the good ones to help us.