Experts are calling it a revolution. A transformation in the way that we consume our media. The daily newspaper is dwindling in sales and the 10 o’clock news is quite literally, old news. More and more people are turning to the internet as their source of information. It is free, immediate and we decide what we want to consume. What’s more, we are the reporters.The last ten years have seen an influx of blogs, wikis and amateur news websites that have put the mainstream media in a panic. Citizen journalists are breaking the news that professional organisations refuse to. When the mainstream media declined to broadcast the affairs of American politician Henry Hyde, the news website Salon did.
Blogs are also hugely popular and are breaking news that the media elite are often too afraid to. When Newsweek spiked the story about Bill Clinton and an intern named Monica Lewinsky, blogger Matt Drudge published the claims. He reportedly said afterwards, "We are all newsmen now." Was this the turning point? Did this end the role of the media elite?
A wave of citizen journalism is infiltrating the media at an alarming rate. It is redefining the role of the traditional journalist and taking his audience too.
I will explore whether citizen journalism is an ally or a rival of mainstream journalists. I will look at how the role of the traditional journalist is being redefined and what they can do to keep up with the digital revolution. I will examine the advantages and disadvantages of citizen journalism and whether it poses a threat or an opportunity to the mainstream media. I will offer my own arguments aswell as those of authors, journalists and the bloggers themselves.
The newspaper we pick up on the news stand gives us an agenda of news for the day. The 20 or 30 stories we read have been carefully selected by a news editor and written in a specific way. We have no choice but to read the news that we are given. The internet, however, gives us access to thousands of stories from all over the world that we can read at our own discretion. All’s it takes is a click of the mouse.
The journalist’s role of gatekeeper, in deciding what information the public should and shouldn’t know, has inevitably been redefined. Kovach and Rosenstiel say, “The notion of the press as gatekeeper no longer strictly defines journalism’s role” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2003, p. 23) And Brown and Willis argue that their role is changing because of the consumers themselves; "The venerable profession of journalism finds itself at a rare moment in history where, for the first time, its hegemony as gatekeeper of the news is threatened by not just new technology but, potentially, by the audience it serves” (We Media, 2003). Is this a bad thing?
Dan Gillmor, a Silicon Valley journalist, seems to think not. He says that mainstream journalists have got to use citizen journalism to their advantage; “We must recognise and use their knowledge or else they won’t settle for half-baked coverage. They will come into the kitchen themselves” (Gillmor, 2006, p. 111). And the Media Studies Journal says, “There is no getting around the fact that if one trend defines the future of all media, it is their interaction with their computer and the Internet” (De Wolk, 2001, p.3)
As more and more people opt for the internet, the mainstream media fight a losing battle. So what is the journalist’s role now?
They argue that they still have a place in today’s media. John Carroll, former editor of the LA Times, says; “Newspapers dig up the news. Others repackage it” (Carroll, 2006, p.6) Kovach and Rosenstiel share a similar view and say that journalists will retain their role as prime mover within the media; “Journalisms function is not fundamentally changed by the digital age. The journalist is first engaged in verification” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2003, p.25). They accept that their role as gatekeeper has come to an end but argue that they now have a more important role; “The new journalist is no longer deciding what the public should know. She is helping audiences make order out of it” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2003, p.24). So the newspaper journalists still feel that they have the most important role. But what do the online reporters think?
The journalist’s role as prime mover is lost these days ,according to Mitchell Stevens from the Columbia Journalism Review; “In a day when information pours out of digital spigots, stories that package painstakingly gathered facts on current events have lost much of their value” (Stevens, Beyond the News, 2007). He disagrees with the idea that the internet and mainstream journalists can work together. He sees citizen journalism as an independent form of media; “The widely held belief that the Web is a parasite that lives off the metro desks and foreign bureaus of beleaguered yet civic-minded newspapers and broadcast news organisations is a bit facile.” He says, “Mainstream journalists are making a mistake if they believe their ability to collect and organize facts will continue to make them indispensable.”
In Mitchells view then, citizen journalism poses a serious threat to mainstream journalism. He suggests that citizens are an independent and capable group of reporters and the professional’s role of gathering the facts and figures is growing more unnecessary as a result.
He admits that there is still room for their input though; “There will continue to be room, of course, for some kinds of traditional, thoroughly sourced reporting: exclusives, certainly. Investigations, certainly.”
Stevens argues then that mainstream journalists seem to have a more official role. Exclusives, investigations and gathering facts is where there responsibility lies, while the role of citizens is to break the news and deliver it fast.
So, is that all it boils down to? Does citizen journalism pose a threat because it delivers news faster?
It would appear so. Amateur journalists are not managed by proprietors with business interests which means they can break whatever scandal they like. What’s more, they can deliver it when they like. Websites such as ohmynews.com and italknews.com are giving professional media organisations a run for their money in terms of breaking news. If a story broke at 7:00pm, a news website could have published it within 10 minutes, whereas by the time it has reached traditional news outlets like the 10 o’clock news, it is already 3 hours old. Or when it reaches the newspaper the following day, it is 12 hours old. So citizen journalism clearly has its advantages.
User Generated Content (UGC) invites the audience to participate by sending in their views, photographs or video clips. It is opening new horizons for news websites, giving insight into major news events that conventional reporting is unable or unwilling to comment on. Several major mainstream news websites have already begun to include UGC, including the BBC who last year hosted video clips on their website sent in from the public of the 7/7 London Bombings. The clips, taken by mobile telephones on the underground trains, revealed the extent of the tragedy. It was immediate, insightful and it gave us something that a television camera never could.
Of course, citizen journalism also has its disadvantages.
We saw the downside of UGC when some members of the public began to bombard the website with racist comments. Citizens are also, of course, only human and often get it wrong. Wikipedia is a web-based, free content encyclopedia that is written by volunteering members of the public from all over the globe. But in June 2005, the LA Times posted an experimental ‘Wikitorial’ - a 1,000 word comment piece on the Iraq war and invited readers to add, re-write and delete comment as they wished. Two days later they were forced to pull the plug after the article was bombarded with profanity and hardcore pornography. There is also the famous incident when Wikipedia credited musician Ronnie Hazlehurst with having written S Club 7 hit, Reach. This was cited by several newspapers when they wrote obituaries for the late Hazlehurst. It was a hoax and showed that citizen journalists can get it wrong. The sloppy journalism of the professionals wasn’t much better.
Professional journalists seem to hold low opinions of the citizen reporters. “Salivating morons” and a “lynch mob” is how Steve Lovelady, online editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, describes citizen journalists. And Jonathan Klein, CBS Executive says, “Bloggers have no checks and balances...It’s a guy sitting in his living room in his pyjamas.”
It is also the general consensus of professionals that citizen journalism does not pose that great a threat to traditional media.
Herald Sun online editor John McDonald says, "I still think the overwhelming majority of stories read and produced in the future will be written by journalists who are employed as journalists." He suggest that professional journalists are likely to be taken more seriously than the amateurs; “It's nice to know the average citizen can have their say and do that effectively, but people who are paid to do it for a living are more likely to be read and acknowledged than those who do it on a one-off basis." (2006, Citizen Journalism).
Sydney Morning Herald blogger, Julie Robotham, agrees and says that citizen journalism is a, “drop in the ocean” compared to the concentrated power of massive global media enterprises. She stresses that the professional’s role as prime mover is more important to journalism than audience participation; “Interaction with readers via web has so far had very little impact on the way news is gathered, reported or delivered.” She says efforts by mainstream media outlets to increase audience interactivity doesn’t represent part of the ‘citizen journalism’ movement (2006, Citizen Journalism). So what does the future of journalism look like?
“Tomorrow's news reporting will be more of a conversation, or a seminar. The lines will blur between producers and consumers, changing the role of both,” says Dan Gillmor (Gillmor, 2006, p.XXIV)
In an era when anyone can be a reporter or commentator on the Web, “you move to a two-way journalism,” according to John Seeley Brown, Silicon Valley think tank. The journalist becomes a “forum leader” or a “mediator” rather than a lecturer. He audience becomes not consumers, but “pro-sumers,” a hybrid of consumer and producer, he says (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2003, p.24).
Mark Potts, co-founder of the Washington Post, muses on the future of journalism; “In the years to come, all these changes and more are going to churn through journalism. Time-honoured brand names and media types will wither and die; new ones will rise up to take their place, creating fresh opportunities” (De Wolk, 2001, p.88).
He offers advice to the mainstream media; “The best journalism requires a good deal of flexibility, and journalists will have to employ that same sort of agility in dealing with the changes around them.” Citizen journalism: A threat or an opportunity? An ally or a rival?
Some see the bloggers as an outlet for free speech, a counterbalance to media arrogance and a much needed call for greater transparency in the media. Others view them as vigilantes bent on discrediting the media. One thing’s for sure, they’re going nowhere.
We are in the midst of a digital revolution and although citizens have an important role to play in the reporting process, I would argue that true journalism will always require professional journalists.
Citizen journalism may pose a threat because it takes away from the traditional role of journalism. The media elite’s role as gatekeeper has been diminished, for instance. Blogs and amateur websites are also providing more immediacy, participation, rationality and customization than the mainstream newspapers, TV and radio currently do.
Citizens are providing a free news service and are voicing their opinions on a whole host of issues. More importantly, people read it. I would also argue though that citizen journalism can be an opportunity if mainstream journalists use it to their advantage.
"The growth of citizen journalism will shape the direction the media takes and broaden the pool of sources used by journalists. This can only be a healthy trend because we are now getting more voices and perspectives," says Leon Gettler, a journalist with The Age. And Kovach and Rosenstiel say, “The interaction with the audience becomes an integral part of the story as it evolves” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2003, p.24).
Figures show that 75,000 weblogs are created every day (technorati.com). They also reveal that newspaper sales are dwindling at a rate of 4% every year. It’s hardly difficult to link the two.
I would argue that true journalism will always require a true journalist. It seems the solution for mainstream journalists is to work alongside citizen journalism and incorporate it into their work. UGC is a good example of this. If the mainstream media used citizen journalism to their advantage, they might be able to keep their heads above water. For the meantime, at least.
