Citizen Journalism, Wikileaks And Regret

Michael Hedges February 8, 2011 Follow on Twitter

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.”

The Citizen Media Watch blog went inactive officially in January. Begun in 2006 as a chronicle of citizen journalism, little had been added to its content since 2009 as principal writers Lotta Holmström and Gitta Wilén moved on to other activities. “With some regret we are making it official that this blog is now simply an archive of our previous posts,” they wrote (January 12). “We hope our old posts will shed some light on an era that came and went quite quickly, but changed journalism in many ways.” (See the Citizen Media Watch archive here)

Conceptually, citizen journalism has long been part of media culture. When presidents and princes licensed printing presses to grip tightly the words and thoughts so distributed, means were found to enable other voices. Democracy and media pluralism needed each other. With the rise of each “new” medium – from the printing press to the telegraph, radio to television and on to the Web – barriers to access were dismantled. Often enough those barriers have simply been moved.

But citizen journalism – along with step-sister “participatory journalism” – was the talk of the Web in the middle of the last decade. Every news agency and media outlet promoted access points for uploading news tips, photos and video. What a surprise for them to be upstaged in that pursuit by Wikileaks. Now media outlets are scrambling to offer their own “leaks” portals, editors realizing their professional journalists might need a good lead or two.

“The shift from megaphone to discussion partner was a major one,” wrote Holmström and Wilén in their final blog post. It is for new media people the salient discussion. Social media portals appear to open dialogue and offer information streams technically unavailable a decade ago. The effect on journalism, broadly defined, is less than the effect on currently employed journalists and their editors.

Paraphrasing City University London journalism professor and Guardian columnist Roy Greenslade, journalism without context is just reporting. That hasn’t changed. Discussion can add to context. The “megaphone” is simply process.

The “garage band” culture of the Web brought out people ready to play, maybe get famous. And maybe get paid. Anybody with an axe (colloquial expression for guitar) or an axe to grind can find space. Some stars have risen. Many get their 15 minutes of fame, rarely fortune. Most fall into the black hole of cyberspace. So it is in the great marketplace of ideas.

“It soon became obvious that… it was easy to get readers to send us great photos of their cats and creative gingerbread houses,” wrote Holmström and Wilén, “but enormously difficult to get initiated articles from readers on today’s topics. Later (Swedish website) Newsmill proved it could be done, though in the form of opinion material, and also showed the need for asking the right questions.” Newsmill is one of the burgeoning “content farm” websites and specializes in publishing wide-ranging opinion. It was purchased last December by Swedish publishing giant Bonnier. One of the biggest American “content farm” websites, Huffington Post, was just acquired by AOL for €230 million.

“Starting out we were examining a fairly new territory,” wrote Lotta Holmström. “My focus was on understanding it and its future implications. I think now that perhaps we should have moved on sooner to looking at the revenue aspect, even though we did address it some. I guess the main reason I didn’t focus much on it is that it’s not what makes me tick. I’m a sucker for creative ideas not too limited by the harsh reality of economics.”

Legal problems looming, former hacker bro and Wikileaks icon Julian Assange is facing those harsh realities with a million dollar book deal. Described by Forbes’ Andy Greenberg (November 29, 2010) as “the prophet of a coming age of involuntary transparency,” his contentious relationship with various media partners shows the depth of this great divide. The concept of citizen journalism never quite matched the reality.