What makes a citizen journalist? Any disaster will do
In the Ciziten Journalism Forum being held right now, the main question is: “What can we do to energise this army of citizen journalists out there?”
A short BBC item first highlighted how many videos and images made by citizens are already part of mainstream news reporting. Tsunamis, bombings, floodings, accidents: there is little that can happen these days, without witnesses responding immediately, recording images, audio and video. And at the moment, many of these materials reach mainstream media: within 15 minutes of the London bombings on July 7 2005, the BBC started receiving images that were later shown on TV and on the BBC websites. And companies like Scoopt are assisting citizens to sell relevant material to the media.
In the Citizen Journalism Forum being held right now, the main question is: “What can we do to energise this army of citizen journalists out there?”
A short BBC item first highlighted how many videos and images made by citizens are already part of mainstream news reporting. Tsunamis, bombings, floodings, accidents: there is little that can happen these days, without witnesses responding immediately, recording images, audio and video. And many of these materials reach mainstream media very quickly: within 15 minutes of the London bombings on July 7 2005, the BBC started receiving images that were later shown on TV and on the BBC websites. Companies like Scoopt are now also assisting citizens to sell relevant material to the media.
Of course citizen reporters are more than the free ears and eyes of mainstream media companies – but this is often where it starts. Or as “Rachel from North London” told the audience, ‘I was writing as a survivor’. Rachel is an active weblogger who started blogging after being trapped on one of the trains during the London bombings. She got treated for minor injuries in the hospital, made it home through a chaotic London, and found a commuter message board where people had been posting messages all day long. ‘I felt a a real need to tell my story, and was frustrated with there being no reports on what had really happened in my train’.
A few days later she got a request from a BBC journalist to write an online diary on the BBC website for seven days after the bombings. “Passengers from my particular train started to follow my blog – in my case my blog was born out of a need to tell the truth and to just tell everyone what had happened. I was writing as a survivor.”
So rule one: major news events can make ordinary citizens into citizen reporters, just like that. Or as someone on the panel said: this simply was newsworthy material. But what else can citizen journalists do?
TAG: wemedia
Previous Comments
Old Media has always used ordinary [more often the not-so-ordinary (a.k.a. Stringers), in a privilaged position, true – but the ordinary too] to gather its news.
The only thing that has changed is that the Net has levelled the barriers to entry to publish.
The result is that, to the delight of many, niche subjects are being properly covered – for the first time – and citizens are, at last, free to tell their own story without having to suffer the humiliating experience of seeing a reporter and editor make a hash of it.
You fall into the trap of only thinking that what are considered newsworthy events today are what makes good blogging at risk of severe embarassment – probably from your children.
This is because there is a big difference. The Net has feedback. Shysters are found out very quickly already. The Net arrived without the ability to find the cream – and skim. Reputations all started uncertainly – particularly given Old Media’s inability to get a clue and get connected.
But, nature abhors a vacuum. New sites and software that help to find, filter, store, classify, and judge are arriving every day. The best will win hearts and minds and within as little as two years the Net and bloggers will be the primary source of news and news comment.
“What can we do to energise this army of citizen journalists out there?”
Provide the tools and the training for groups who typically do not own digital means to become citizen journalists. I wonder what the ratio of journalism schools to populations might be in some of the developing world. Training can help instill some of the qualities needed by citizen journalists.