Media | Journalism | Publishing

News

Sources & sites

Resources

Publishing info
Style guides
Public relations

Research

Journals
Our projects
Articles

Leisure

Assorted reading

About us

About the site
Email contact

Jobs

Recent ads

Events & dates

Not to be missed

Our other mags
Main Guidomedia index

Feature

The rise of citizen journalism in the world of new media
Changing the face of news and information reporting

2007

Citizen journalism or citizen media? It doesn’t really matter what you call it, the purpose behind it is the same – the public’s engagement in news-making. No longer happy to rely on broadcast and print media for news and information, people are taking advantage of the accessibility and immediacy of the Internet and other developing technologies, and using them to report news and express their opinions – whether this be via their own localised weblog or through texts, photos or live footage sent to big media. Ellen Fish reports...

“Big media … treated the news as a lecture. We told you what the news was. You bought it, or you didn’t. You might write us a letter: we might print it. (If we were television and you complained, we ignored you entirely unless the complaint arrived on a libel lawyer’s letterhead.) Or you cancelled your subscription or stopped watching our shows. It was a world that bred complacency and arrogance on our part. It was a gravy train while it lasted, but it was unsustainable.”
From We the media: Grassroots journalism by the people, for the people by Dan Gillmor.

Citizen journalism: A growth trend in reporting
Media experts have predicted that by 2021 “citizens will produce 50 per cent of the news peer-to-peer”. The Internet and new digital technologies mean that a passionate citizen armed with devices such as a mobile phone, digital camera, or video camcorder can now engage in this new trend of citizen reporting known by some as citizen journalism. Some journalists from mainstream media, however, disagree that this is the next big publishing trend.

Citizen journalists: Audiences turn to journalism
Those engaged in personal journalism are “the people formerly known as the audience” says Dan Gillmor, former technology columnist with the USA’s San Jose Mercury News, and author of We the media. It is where citizens play “an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information,” Gillmor says.

Public or personal journalism has been around for years but the technological tools now available to a citizen journalist are new. (See Sidebar - Old idea – new medium)

Cit-j tools, and a new generation
Easy-to-use open source publishing tools combined with an ever increasing digitally native generation who find it easier to text rather than call someone, along with the move of advertising dollars to online publishing, have all nurtured the rise of citizen journalism.

The forms citizen journalist reporting take now extend beyond the written word, illustrations and photographs in print or online. Online audiences now expect fancier presentations with added features such as streaming audio and video footage.

The motivations and objectives of citizen journalists or cit-j sites
The motivations of citizen journalists are many.

Engaging with mainstream media
At the most basic level of participation, members of the public ring up radio stations to have their say on talkback. Others write letters, emails or texts to the editor of newspapers, or participate in online reader forums or blogs.

Simon Johanson, Online editor at The Age in Melbourne, happily accepts reader feedback to supplement the news.

“We have instances recently of people contributing photos from their mobile phones, and breaking news stories which we’ve used … and of eyewitness accounts where people ring in. We take audio grabs of what they say and upload them online … so we are engaged in the process of … public news gathering,” says Johanson.

The Age online gets between 20 to 30 unsolicited pictures and text emails per day, and hundreds of emails. Feedback via the weblogs range between 500 to 2,000 per day. Johanson says that people are engaging much more with online feedback than talkback radio.

Newsbreakers
In the US, Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report (website) got the mainstream media to take notice and finally report on the Lewinsky/Clinton affair. The Norwegian online newspaper VG Nett beat wired services and big media when they were the first to break the news of the Tsunami. Simon Johanson recalls his involvement in online reporting during the World Economic Forum in Melbourne in 2000 where the independent Indymedia ran underground reporting of the event on their website, regularly updating it with information such as where the main crowds and demonstrations were, plus where the police were located.

Broadcasters like the US CNN and the UK BBC encourage the public to submit photos of major events (for example rail crashes, storms). Mobile phones which are now also cameras, mean that the public’s access to recording and sending news via texts or pics is simple and immediate. Google’s YouTube and Flickr are also forums for live footage reporting.
Richard Sambrook, director of BBC’s World Service and Global News division reported these statistics on audience involvement in the reporting of the London bombing on 7 July 2005:

“Within six hours we received more than 1,000 photographs, 20 pieces of amateur video, 4,000 text messages and 20,000 e-mails. People were participating in our coverage in a way we had never seen before. By the next day, our main evening TV newscast began with a package edited entirely from video sent in by viewers.”

Citizens as media watchdogs
The public now monitor, analyse and critique mainstream broadcast, print and online media.

A most recent example is the statistical information from the US Bush administration about the number of Iraqi citizens killed since the US occupation of Iraq. Up until three weeks ago, it was reported by the US media as 300,000. However, on 12 October 2006, Crikey published an article which said that the Iraq body count originally reported by the US government were an underestimate and incorrect, and that a study by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health revealed that the figure was more like 655,000. Australian media such as the ABC television news in Victoria, took a further 10 days (22 October) before reporting on this story.

From hyperlocalism to global movements
The rise of hyperlocal websites is another trend for those interested in conversing and sharing issues of local concern online. There’s the community activist interested in forming an online forum to discuss issues ranging from local to global concern.

Participatory news sites
Ohmynews in South Korea is probably one of the most participatory examples of news reporting. Ohmynews has gained success and popularity with its motto, "Every Citizen is a Reporter”. It was established by Oh Yeon-ho on 22 February, 2000 and it has a staff of about 65 traditional reporters and editors who write about 20 per cent of its content, with the rest coming from about 44,000 freelance contributors – mostly ordinary citizens. OhmyNews produces around 150 articles a day.

15 minutes of fame
There are those who wish to achieve fame by spying and reporting on the rich and famous. One of the latest trends is the rise of amateur or citizen paparazzi. These are people who sneak around with digital cameras, snapping the rich and famous and selling their pics to magazines for large sums of money. On 5 November, The Sunday Age reported that a Canadian couple were recently paid $A26,000 for some almost useless pictures of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

Key debates around citizen journalism
Critics of citizen journalism
Many journalists and publishers in big media see their role as the gatekeeper of information and are wary of citizens doing journalism. Citizen journalism is not journalism, they argue, and many like Simon Johanson, Online editor The Age shun the label ‘citizen journalist’ as a descriptor. (See sidebar – Glossary of terminology)

“There’s a distinction between people who can write, people who have opinions and people who can do practicing journalism,” says Johanson.

“It is like calling someone a ‘citizen doctor’ or a ‘citizen mechanic’,” he says.

“People can learn those skills and practice those skills” but “journalism is a craft,” adds Johanson.

Journalist training involves learning about truth, objectivity, quality, trust, and accountability. The argument is that citizen reporting is not journalism – it is mostly commentary and opinion. Critics say that most citizen reporters are not necessarily trained in basic journalistic techniques such as fact checking, cross-checking, and going to primary sources for their information.

Johanson points to the example of Inymedia’s reporting of the World Economic Forum which “may be citizen reporting but it’s not verified facts, it’s not backed up, it’s not checked, it’s not cross-checked, it’s not seeing whether what’s happening is true. So there’s a quality of difference as well”.

“There is a misunderstanding or a lack of understanding of resources, time, effort, the credibility, the effort that goes into reporting …” says Johanson, who adds that reporting is often “unpleasant and dangerous”.
“Who’s going to have the time and energy to fly over to the Solomons and report from Fiji about what the PM
’s doing … the realities of news gathering are often forgotten in this discussion.”
There are also legal risks for citizen reporters, who may not be aware of the pitfalls of publishing such as the risk of defamation actions.

Bloggers also to get a lot of flack from journalists.

Simon Johanson has this to say about them: “Most bloggers aren’t journalists, aren’t reporting they’re commentating; they’re like radio shock jocks, they are the opinion … the voices of opinion. And yes, they do break stories, they have increasingly in the US, and particularly had an impact on the news agenda by rifling out lots of information that might not necessarily come out otherwise …in the US in reporting the news. I think that is a very valuable and important in contributing to the general reporting sphere. I wouldn’t consider them as journalists.”

The advantages of citizen journalism
Citizen journalism has value because it provides: A fresh angle or voice; (As Dan Gillmor would say) the voice “by the people, for the people”; a passionate or personal viewpoint; And an alternative to big media reporting. Unlike some journalists, who may be sent to report on a story they care nothing about, the ‘cit-j’ is often passionate about their topic and has often acquired expert knowledge as a result of many hours of research.

Johanson acknowledges the value in “people having a voice and being able to participate” despite not wanting to call what they do citizen journalism.

The public’s participation in news is more democratic. News and information has become a conversation rather than a lecture.

The public are often at events as they happen whereas journalists rarely are. Some citizen journalists break big news stories before mainstream media.

With the right technology, citizen reporting is cheap to do; anyone can do it and publish in a matter of seconds or minutes.

Mainstream media in partnership with 'cit-js': A growing trend?
At one end of the participation spectrum, the public already engage with big media through letters to the editor, texts, and photos they send in. As part of The Age online’s Scoop initiative, each web page reads:

“When you see news happening: SMS/MMS: 0406 THE AGE (0406 843 243), or email us.”

“There’s a whole new scope for us to source of information,” says Johanson.
In addition to Scoop, other initiatives include: Blogcentral – moderated blogs; And recently, The Age online have set up a feedback forum where 10 swinging voters from marginal electoral seats will document their reactions to the Victorian state election campaign. Johanson says this has been designed to be like a pendulum of voter attitudes.

Johanson points to Ohmynews in Korea as an example of public participation in news reporting but is cautious about it happening anywhere else.

“I’m not sure if that model is translatable to an Australian, to an American or to a European site … it hasn’t happened”.

Mainstream media could play more of a role in training citizens in the art of basic journalistic principles and techniques in addition to the ethical and legal issues involved in publishing. The BBC in the UK has recognised the value in news coverage being a true partnership between big media and the audience, and they are taking a leadership role in training audiences how to become better news creators with free broadcast and new media online training.

Conclusion: The future of citizen journalism
“Do I think that citizen journalism is the way of the future in terms of reporting?” asks Johanson (before I could). To which he answers “No”.

“There is … a lack of understanding of resources, time, effort, the credibility, the effort that goes into reporting that people don’t comprehend,” Johanson says.

Neither does Johanson see newspapers morphing into big citizen media organisations.

“To be honest I can’t see it happening really”, says Johanson. “I don’t think there’s a model for organising a critical mass of people to report in that way.”

Nevertheless, the impact of new technologies, plus the public’s ability and desire to engage and participate in news reporting has been huge. You only have read the News, Media or IT sections of major newspapers to find a new version of citizen media: Amateur paparazzi, open source portals offering free information similar to classifieds (such as Craiglist.com in the US), wikis such as Wikinews, blog trackers like Technorati, Google’s Youtube for posting videos, Myspace and so on.

Perhaps the time is near, when big media, to keep up with the flood of public reporting, will respond to this new trend, and like South Korea’s Ohmynews will engage the public as equal participants in news reporting and the dissemination of information. If the future predictions around the rise in citizen reporting are correct, big media would be wise to take notice, jump off their gravy train and board the citizen railway.

Because if they don’t, they may get left behind.

_______________________________________