You are here: Home > citizen journalism is not journalism
Aside

citizen journalism is not journalism

By on January 18, 2009 in pr

every time there is some horrible disaster the twitterati / blogosphere lights up with almost jubilant vindication. it’s starting to grate.

i was not conscious of this until i saw a Tweet by blogger @longzheng:

it’s a shame it takes an accident to “show off” the power of Twitter and community journalism. let’s just accept it works already.

first and foremost, let’s stop using disasters to sell and justify social media – it’s verging on ambulance chasing now: denver plane crash, mumbai terror attacks and most recently usair crash in the hudson to name a few.

furthermore, having had some time to watch all of these events unfold and evaluate what’s being said, i don’t think that citizen journalism is really journalism. i think at best they’re eyewitness accounts at worst they’re complete fabrications. the fact that someone captures something on their camera phone or tweets something doesn’t make it journalism.

do we call it cctv journalism when cctv footage is captured of a robbery by cctv?

it becomes journalistic when:

  • someone takes that footage;
  • interviews witnesses;
  • interviews police;
  • interviews the victim(s);
  • writes / records a meaningful story and
  • someone verifies the facts quoted.

i don’t dispute the value of social media tools in recording an eyewitness account but let’s not engage in social media jihadism about it. twitter and twitpic are certainly useful for feeding information back in real time about an event. a journalist or blogger can then go back over this information and use it as part of the steps above to write a piece of journalism.

the intelligent consumption of media means that you constantly evaluate what you are reading and not merely accepting it as fact. this is less likely to happen if you are reading an established publication that you already trust because of their reputation. Calling a hashtag news does not fall into the “intelligent consumption” category, in fact I would call it indiscriminate gluttony of the social media variety.

finally, just from a purely consumer perspective i don’t want to consume my news in a fragmented piecemeal fashion over 50 different social media sites. i want a cohesive account – a story. i may read several stories to get differing viewpoints but i don’t want to read my news in 1000 140 character chunks.

eye witness accounts will always have a place – as will “citizen journalism”. will it replace the millions of talented individuals who pore over the information and tell us a story? not in the next hundred years.

, , , , , ,

  • servantofchaos

    Don't we pay more attention to certain Twitter individuals because of their reputation? Don't we listen to a story because it is told in a compelling way? What about #mumbai? The coverage from *certain* individuals was astounding … while most TV crews were struggling to report incidents hours later.

    Live reporting is challenging even for the most experienced professional. And sometimes I prefer the immediacy of events and the personal storytelling over a fact-checked, cohesive account. But notice, very few citizen journalists take the time (or even have the inclination) for evaluating events in a comprehensive manner … they mostly stay for the moment and are gone.

  • http://www.jonathannguyen.net jnau

    so if i read you correctly you raise three points:

    1. some twitter users (twits?) are more credible than others;
    2. there have been examples of very good reporting in the case of #mumbai and
    3. preference for personal storytelling vs a lengthier fact checked account.

    on point one. i both agree and disagree. for people who understand the medium we look at the twitterer and make an evaluation, but the problem is very few of the mainstream are social media savvy. they have come from the heritage media model and many people still believe what they read in the newspaper all the time. there are many social media “mavens” and “experts” out there preaching the gospel that i'm afraid misinforms and presents a case that is somewhat simple:

    twitter broke the news = twitter good
    twitter = must be true

    so the crux of the issue is that for you (author of the age of conversation), it makes perfect sense because by virtue of your experience you understand the medium and understand how to discern and determine credibility. whereas you read an article like “Mumbai attacks reported live on Twitter, Flickr” which appeared in the smh, and as an uninformed reader, you would believe that twitter is a great way to get news for everyone. asher's summary of the role that socmed played in that article is fantastic, but asher, is actually a very social media savvy journo, so again, the ability to distil the facts and discern credibility exists.

    on point two, there were some brilliant accounts coming out on #mumbai, but what i found following it was that it was no different to a mate there calling me saying: “this is happening and then that is happening.” it's a great way, as you say in point three to get a personal story telling account. so i believe it's exactly that, it's a personal account of what is happening, but we have never called that journalism in the past. perhaps it comes down to a debate over the definition of journalism?

    on point three i do agree 100%. i also like the fact that you get multiple accounts of what is happening and it is much easier to get a holistic view of an event with multiple perspectives. as a personal preference though, i find waiting on the next 140 chars sometimes frustrating, and sometimes the finer nuances of the language is lost. i emphasise though that that is personal preference some of the time.

    ultimately, i am a believer in social media and its potential, what raises the sceptic are the trendy phrases like “citizen journalism” that fuels hype and bubbles. moving into the future, microblogging will unquestionably be part of the news landscape and there will be new trust models and capabilities. until then people like you are not only going to have to get people excited by the medium and not fear it, but to fully understand the good, bad and ugly.

    thanks for taking the time to comment as always gav!

  • servantofchaos

    Wow … that's some response, Johnathan!

    I like the idea of “citizen journalists”. And even some of the large publishers like MSNBC are using it. Everyone always has an agenda … a publisher/editor/journalist etc may claim objectivity, but it's an impossibility.

    Have you read Citizen Marketers (http://www.creatingcustomerevangelists.com/cm/)? It is essentially saying many of the same things … that the means of production have been democratised, giving rise to a whole new form of creativity. This also means that the role of reader comes with new responsibilities — that of critical reading. As you point out, not enough of that is done (in the case of traditional and/or social media).

    I think that the issues that you raise are also issues shared with journalism. Quality is an issue in every field of human endeavour. But as with most things, we are attracted to the writings, movies and even music, that most closely aligns with our values. What I like best about it all, is that this is all ushering in an era of widespread systemic change — which brings out the best (and perhaps the worst) in us all.

    Thanks for keeping me thinking!

  • http://www.jonathannguyen.net jnau

    the same thanks to you! i had an extremely productive writing day yesterday sitting in the sunshine and mulling over these things.

    i'll give citizen marketers a read, more food for thought.

  • http://th2tran.blogspot.com th2tran

    I'm indifferent to the term “citizen journalism”.
    Here in Toronto, Canada, we've recently had a power outage (#darkTO) and I found myself jumping onto Twitter–rather than the radio–for updates. Mind you, I didn't constantly stare at the screen waiting for it to refresh; I just subscribed to their RSS feed.
    Incidentally, I learned that the room temperature in Toronto without heating in the midst of a Winter freeze is -1C, something I was wondering just a few days just after a snow storm hit us. That's probably something I wouldn't have found out from the mainstream media.

    To your last point–will it replace the millions of talented individuals who pore over the information and tell us a story–I think those millions of talented individuals are going to have to pore over twitter channels as well, in the very near future. :-)

  • http://alannashaikh.blogspot.com Alanna

    Yes, yes, yes. I cannot agree with you more.

    This is also why the death of the newspaper scares me so much.

  • http://the-newrepublic.blogspot.com Scorates

    I suggest you have a look at the response to Baby Creative's Monster Dan ads for Action For Children.

    Citizen Journalism is alive and well and giving the pros a run for their money.

  • Paul

    You have not idea, get a live and learn about current media and web practices…

    If you watch any TV news, they all tell you the same story in ten or two different ways, they make up stories, they tell lies and they don't tell you all the real facts either.. is that what journalism is about then?

    At least if I watched a video in youtube I know it is from the real source and not an edited bullsh*t journalist version of it.

    You are so wrong and old fashion, you are about 10yrs behind everyone else.. you will be one of these people blogging cause you won't be able to get a job soon, so except the technology and citizen journalism – suck it up

  • http://www.jonathannguyen.net jnau

    Hi Paul, it's good to see people are passionate about this topic.

    If I may paraphrase, the crux of your argument is that:

    Premise 1: TV news lies, and they all tell the lie in ten or two different ways.
    Premise 2: If it's on YouTube it must be true
    Conclusion: Actually I'm unclear of your conclusion.

    Although I believe both your premises are somewhat generalised, it heartens me to know that although our viewpoints differ there are still people who are passionate about news and current affairs. Thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts.

  • http://www.jonathannguyen.net Jonathan Nguyen

    Hi Paul, it's good to see people are passionate about this topic.

    If I may paraphrase, the crux of your argument is that:

    Premise 1: TV news lies, and they all tell the lie in ten or two different ways.
    Premise 2: If it's on YouTube it must be true
    Conclusion: Actually I'm unclear of your conclusion.

    Although I believe both your premises are somewhat generalised, it heartens me to know that although our viewpoints differ there are still people who are passionate about news and current affairs. Thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts.

  • Pingback: citizen journalism is not: melbourne airport example | jonathan nguyen

  • Pingback: Citizen Journalism: Friend or Foe of Traditional Media » MDIA1001 – Media Literacies