News by the people for the people
- 3 May 06, 03:01 PM
There has been much talk about citizen journalism and ways of people telling their own stories.
It is a phenomenon that mainstream media is still grappling with. They realise this is something that can add to our understanding of the world, but are unsure about its place.
At this afternoon鈥檚 session on citizen journalism, the main issue for the representatives of big media seemed to be about truth and accuracy.
George Brock of said they loved to hear people鈥檚 stories. But he qualified this, saying it had to be newsworthy and true. At the end of the day, people want reliability and accuracy, he argued.
The message was echoed by the 大象传媒鈥檚 director of news Helen Boaden. She made an interesting point about the veracity of witness accounts.
鈥淲itness accounts do not necessary give you an objective factual picture. They give you the truth as I see it,鈥 she said.
鈥淭he role of journalism is to sift facts and give you a truthful and factual picture.鈥
All this talk of accuracy and truth provoked a strident response from an audience member, Leonard Witt from , who accused the panel of talking as if the media had a lock on the truth.
This exchange highlights the divide between news professionals and citizen journalists. The most insightful comments came from someone who became well-known as a blogger after the 7 July bombings in London.
was caught up in the Tube bomb attacks and started blogging about her experience. It was picked up by the 大象传媒 and her diary was published on .
She said that her blogging had been driven by an overwhelming desire to tell her story. Ironically, given that she was the amateur journalist on the panel, she gave the best description of citizen journalism.
For her, it is 鈥渢elling stories of the people, for the people, by the people.鈥 This is the best definition of citizen journalism I have heard in a long time.
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'Ideally', journalists attempt to give a factual account so that we the observer/listener/reader can make up our minds about the 'truth'. Yet anyone who has studied the media in depth (as I have) knows that journalists and media organisations frequently manipulate the facts to make them more 'newsworthy' and often entertaining. Everyone is vying for attention and ratings. Therefore, I welcome the democratisation of the news. No one person's or organisation's interpretation of events should be necessarily more 'factual' than another's. All stories are welcome. Blogging is just another medium for the expression of human experience. I'll decide if it's newsworthy or not.
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If you're looking for a distinction between 'citizen journalism' and professional journalism, ironically this 'blog' entry illustrates it perfectly.
It suffers all the flaws of the non-stop 24 news 'culture' that is so prevalent, in that it is rushed and uninsightful. It tortures the reader with clumsy phraseology:
"...described the best description of..."
and single-sentence paragraphs with no verb:
鈥淭he role of journalism to shift facts and give you a truthful and factual picture.鈥
What you have produced is a formulaic report from a conference, and it is dressed as a 'blog' simply because they are currently trendy.
Blogs developed as a reaction to precisely this approach, in that they allowed non-professionals to give voice to an unconventional, offbeat piece of personal analysis which is engages and broadens the mind of the reader.
I don't mean to be overly hostile, but I think any blurring of the distinction between news reporting and blogging benefits either discipline.
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I think that the idea that blogs can/should compete with newspapers is flawed.
They're essentially chalk and cheese. Blogs enable up-to-the minute publishing, with no checks and balances. Newspapers have a whole top down process. From owner to editor to staff etc., the only thing that have in common is that they attempt to appeal to readers.
I run a blog, which I've cheekily dubbed a blogazine, and I would never try to emulate a newspaper.
We intend to do all of the things a newspaper can't do, within reason, and that, I think, is the strength of blogs. I because anyone who doesn't think critically really shouldn't be reading blogs.
We offer a weekly magazine version on Saturdays, but if readers want to read as stories are posted they can. This means no weekly deadlines, no set order. It's anarchic but why bother emulating a paper magazine? A weekly paper based magazine couldn't do that in the same way without hurting their profits.
I should have attended this meeting but my stance that Citizen Journalism is a red herring really wouldn't have gone down too well with a lot of bloggers. Plus, why surround myself with dinosaurs?
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Veracity is the key point. Bloggs are totally and utterly meaningless unless they are witty or clever in the way some published diaries can be, thus the content can be light hearted fun. Otherwise they are only of relevance to people who know the blogger. Reading self indulgent, serious bloggs of people i do not know would be a total waste of time. Citizen journalism is only relevant to those who know the citizen, without veracity it is worthless to others. For example the shocking expose that Binjamin Wilkomirski who claimed to be a holocaust survivor and wrote graphic descriptions of his time under Nazi rule which was published in 12 languages. The book and authour have subsequently been shown to be a fraud (he spent the war years in a Swiss chalet). Yet in its brief honeymoon period the text was so "moving" that it won many awards and made the author a fortune. I needn't write of the insult this must have cast on real victims of the holocaust. If he had done this in blogg form, veracity and exposure would have been much more difficult, probably through evasiveness, never, and I dare say millions would still be taking it in today. As much as i dislike journalists, I recognise they do a necessary function particulary once you appreciate the amazing capacity of humans, high and low, to peddle blatent invention.
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I see errors in news reports all the time and so i to think the media portrays itself as the only reliable source rather than trying to absorb the resources and information made by people to them.
Definitley in opinion pieces i like to see more input from a wider sample of people rather than just the standard journalistic banter. News is about experiences and even the most didactic attempt at news reporting still presents somewhat biased opinions.
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Hi Alfred, I hope we can talk in the near future- great work in providing updates on this conference. Would love to share what I am doing and dreaming big about getting compelling stories out to a truth seeking audience.
Great feedback on the We Media Conference! Do you, Alfred, or any other viewers know of any websites that serve as a nexus for anyone to upload stories (stories that are compelling, relevant and truthful) via text/ video/ audio?
I work for a mission agency in the US as a video producer (www.sim.org). I am learning that everyone has a story, good or bad. There are incredible stories of God's(whether you choose to beleive this or not I'll let you wrestle with that) work around the world through various events/ wars/ healthcare/ economic growth, etc.
The problem I face is getting the stories out to our audience. (Hence, my question to see if there is a nexus or central network where anyone can go to share their story.) Would it be worthwhile to create a nexus for this via the internet? I am gathering a think tank next week to discuss this as well as the direction
communication is heading.
Amazing things are happening all around us, yet the challege is getting these stories out in front of the overload of "breaking news" we see everyday.
Love to hear back from anyone!
thinking out loud, andy c
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