The State of “Citizen Journ”

With apologies to Orson, two recent news events have folks questioning citizen journalism. CBS had an embarrassing lesson in citizen journalism while Apple got an expensive lesson.

This Is New. And It’s Important.
The bottom line is that dwindling media resources make citizen journalism a must-have, not a trendy nice to have. As a result I think we need to keep making mistakes until we figure this out.

Matthew Ingram puts it best:“Citizen Journalism is “a process, not an event. Can it be abused? Obviously it can. Should we all be a little more careful, myself included, before we rush to post something? Sure we should. Did citizen journalism (or whatever you call it) fail? No.”

Jay Rosen weighs in with an ethics perspective. Will people game the system? Rosen proposes that ultimately the passionate will be most involved and by having an open system with widely available tools, users will police it. I think CBS Eyemobile and Apple offer examples of how the users are policing content. Does it need to work better? Possibly.

Get Involved. Inform Your Opinion.
There are plenty of examples of how media outlets are engaging readers to create content. It goes from top down, MSM initiatives local and national to more grassroots, citizen-only projects.

Get your hands dirty and check it out before you wave the above examples as scary reasons why citizen journalism spells the death of mainstream media. MSM needs the citizen journalist as much as Charles Kane needed Rosebud (it was a sled, btw).

tags | media relations | media | citizen journalism | blog | consumer-generated media

Comments

[BryanG]

Of course the possibility for mis-information and abuse is there but the Wikipedia model has proven to be decent when it comes to user generated content
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm

Perfect NO, but there have been and still are as many books that are published through the traditional writer/editor/publisher model that are rife with mis statements and fundamental inaccuracies. So it's just a matter of whose lies you prefer. And the bottom line is, regardless of the media, the burden is on the reader to vet the information and balance their sources.

[BryanG]

Of course the possibility for mis-information and abuse is there but the Wikipedia model has proven to be decent when it comes to user generated content
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm

Perfect NO, but there have been and still are as many books that are published through the traditional writer/editor/publisher model that are rife with mis statements and fundamental inaccuracies. So it's just a matter of whose lies you prefer. And the bottom line is, regardless of the media, the burden is on the reader to vet the information and balance their sources.

[Bethany Asbell]

It is important for businesses to remember that citizen journalism is a very new medium and that it still needs a great deal of fine tuning and even then should never be blindly depended upon. Companies and media outlets have a great tool in citizen journalism, however, they still have the responsibility of keeping a close eye on the content being produced.

[Neil Vineberg]

Check out Dave Cohn's effort called Spot.us (http://www.spot.us). I think it's an inspired and inspirational initiative.

[Danny Szlauderbach]

Rosebud.

[Leah Thrasher]

Citizen journalism is a great thing for media companies and corporations to utilize. The biggest problem with it right now is not having the proper information to check the facts. Average joes will submit stories and videos of happenings in the world, but with no names and phone numbers of people who can verify the stories. In order for citizen journalism to work, accountability needs to be established. When a professional receives the "news," facts need to be checked before the information enters the mainstream media. It's a great and beautiful thing if used properly. Rarely are there enough media professionals out there to obtain video and pictures the moment something important occurs. Let's face it, people want videos. We want to see what happened, not just read about it later. This is a show AND tell world. Professional journalists will always be there to provide the appropriate facts-checked "tell," while citizen journalists will be there with the cameras rolling ready to "show" us what happened. And of course the users will be there to provide corrections after the fact.

[Emre]

thank you very much

[perde]

thank you

[any]

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