Hot Topic - Citizen Journalism
Professional journalists have long been uncomfortable with amateurs in their midst. Students at accredited universities are given a pass, mostly to tote luggage and gear but keep quiet. Journalist unions and related professional organizations have take steps to keep the “hobbyists” at a distance, employment contracts with recognized news outlets necessary for accreditations. Authoritarian regimes do the same. Still, citizen journalism has found its space.
Citizen journalism became a hot topic a dozen years ago as advancing technologies intersected with a growing sense of the limitations on traditional reporting. Mobile phones suddenly provided instant - albeit shaky - video from anywhere easily transmitted through social media platforms. Broadcasters and publishers were begging folks to share, hoping to project ubiquity.
Enabled by new digital tools, the Web collided with journalism in the last decade with the hope of bringing out the best in both. Perhaps it has. Those tools and the Web itself were seen as the great enablers of information by and for all, giving rise to what came to be called citizen journalism. It was an "era that came and went quite quickly."
Talpa Digital and PCM Media turned off the lights at citizen journalism website Skoeps. It just couldn’t find that “sustainable business model,” said Reuters. In other words: welcome to the web!
“Hi, I’m your personal journalist,” is coming to a device near you. Having what you want, when and where you want it is mantra in new media. Delivering the goods has been elusive, until now.
Watching the tragedy at Virginia Tech unfurl via CNNI has brought home how important civilian journalists have become to the telling of breaking news on television.
The official pronouncements about the Yahoo/Reuters’ new citizen photojournalist project contain all the right buzzwords about encouraging user generated content and getting those efforts out to the wide world, which is swell, but cut to the bottom line and who could make out like a bandit? Hint: It’s not the citizen photojournalist who probably does not really understand the value of the pictures produced, or how to get them marketed exclusively.
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