Citizen Journalism.

What Is Citizen Journalism?

Put very simply, citizen journalism is when private individuals do essentially what professional reporters do – report information. That information can take many forms, from a podcast editorial to a report about a city council meeting on a blog. It can include text, pictures, audio and video. But it’s basically all about communicating information of some kind.

The other main feature of citizen journalism is that it’s usually found online. In fact, the emergence of the Internet – with blogs, podcasts, streaming video and other Web-related innovations – is what has made citizen journalism possible.

The Internet gave average people the ability to transmit information globally. That was a power once reserved for only the very largest media corporations and news agencies.

Citizen journalism can take many forms. Steve Outing of Poynter.org and others have outlined many different types of citizen journalism. Below I've condensed Outing's "layers" of citizen journalism and placed them into two main categories: semi-independent and fully independent.

Semi-Independent Citizen Journalism

This involves citizens contributing, in one form or another, to existing professional news sites. Some examples:

• Readers posting their comments alongside stories done by professional reporters - essentially a 21st-century version of the letter to the editor. A growing number of news websites allow readers to post comments. In an effort to prevent obscene or objectionable messages, many websites require that readers register in order to post.
  Example: Bucks County Courier-Times
• Readers adding their information to articles done by professional journalists. For instance, a reporter may do an article about disparities in gas prices around town. When the story appears online, readers can post information about gas prices in areas not covered in the original story, and even offer tips on where to buy cheaper gas.
• Readers actively working with professional reporters in putting together a story. A reporter might ask that readers with expertise in a particular area send him or her information on that topic, or even do some of their own reporting. That information is then incorporated into the final story.
• Reader blogs that are incorporated into professional news websites. That can includes blogs in which readers critique how the news organization is performing.
  Examples:
  New Jersey.com
  Lawrence Blogs

Independent Citizen Journalism

This involves citizen journalists working in ways that are fully independent of traditional, professional news outlets.

• Blogs in which individuals can report on events in their communities or offer commentary on the issues of the day.
  Examples:
  Life Must Go On In Gaza & Sderot
  Franklin Avenue
• Websites run by an individual or a group of people that report on news events in the local community. Some have editors and screen content, others do not. Some even have print editions.
  Examples:
  Daily Heights
  iBrattleboro
  A slight variation on this theme would be Wikinews, a site similar to Wikipedia, in which anyone can post and edit stories.
• Hybrid sites in which professional and citizen journalists work together.
  Examples:
  Bluffton Today
  Ohmynews (English version of a Korean site)
  
  
  Citizen journalism (also known as "public", "participatory", "democratic", "guerrilla" or "street journalism") is the concept of members of the public "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information," according to the seminal 2003 report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information. Authors Bowman and Willis say: "The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires."
  Citizen journalism should not be confused with community journalism or civic journalism, which are practiced by professional journalists, or collaborative journalism, which is practiced by professional and non-professional journalists working together. Citizen journalism is a specific form of citizen media as well as user generated content.
  Mark Glaser, a freelance journalist who frequently writes on new media issues, said in 2006:

  The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as YouTube.

  In What is Participatory Journalism?, J. D. Lasica classifies media for citizen journalism into the following types:
  1. Audience participation (such as user comments attached to news stories, personal blogs, photos or video footage captured from personal mobile cameras, or local news written by residents of a community)
  2. Independent news and information Websites (Consumer Reports, the Drudge Report)
  3. Full-fledged participatory news sites (NowPublic, Third Report, OhmyNews, DigitalJournal.com,GroundReport)
  4. Collaborative and contributory media sites (Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Newsvine)
  5. Other kinds of "thin media." (mailing lists, email newsletters)
  6. Personal broadcasting sites (video broadcast sites such as KenRadio).
  New media theorist Terry Flew states that there are 3 elements "critical to the rise of citizen journalism and citizen media": open publishing, collaborative editing and distributed content. From this perspective, Wikipedia itself is the largest and most successful citizen journalism project, with news often breaking through Wikipedia editors, and stories being maintained as new facts emerge.
  
  
  
  

  Who are citizen journalists?

  
  
  
  

  According to Jay Rosen, citizen journalists "the people formerly known as the audience," who "were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one another— and who today are not in a situation like that at all. ... The people formerly known as the audience are simply the public made realer, less fictional, more able, less predictable."

  Abraham Zapruder, who filmed  the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy with a home-movie camera, is sometimes presented as an ancestor of all citizen journalists.

  Public Journalism is now being explored via new media such as the use of mobile phones. Mobile phones have the potential to transform reporting and places the power of reporting in the hands of the public. Mobile telephony provides low-cost options for people to set up news operations. One small organization providing mobile news and exploring public journalism is Jasmine News in Sri Lanka.

  According to Mark Glaser, during 9/11 many eyewitness accounts of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center came from citizen journalists. Images and stories from citizen journalists close to the World Trade Center offered content that played a major role in the story.

  In 2004, when the 9.1-magnitude underwater earthquake caused a huge tsunami in Banda Aceh Indonesia, news footage from many people who experienced the tsunami was widely broadcast.^[19]

  During the 2009 Iranian election protests the microblog service Twitter played an important role, after foreign journalists had effectively been "barred from reporting".

  
  

  
  

  Proponents of citizen journalism

  
  

  
  

  Dan Gillmor, former technology columnist with the San Jose Mercury News, is one of the foremost proponents of citizen journalism, and founded a nonprofit, the Center for Citizen Media, to help promote it. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's French-language television network has also organized a weekly public affairs program called, "5 sur 5", which has been organizing and promoting citizen-based journalism since 2001. On the program, viewers submit questions on a wide variety of topics, and they, accompanied by staff journalists, get to interview experts to obtain answers to their questions.

  Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, was one of public journalism's earliest proponents. From 1993 to 1997, he directed the Project on Public Life and the Press, funded by the Knight Foundation and housed at NYU. He also currently runs the PressThink weblog.

  
  

  
  

  The pros and pros of 'citizen journalism'

  
  

  Gerry Storch quotes some people who miss the point in his Feb. 26 column, The pros and cons of newspapers partnering with 'citizen journalism' networks. Four sources who cited "The Negative" about citizen journalism do not understand what it truly is and does. Even the five professionals quoted for "The Positive" disparage the credibility and integrity of citizens who choose – as did those at the founding of our nation -- to make journalism their chosen field and passion.
  The point all of them miss is traditional news media reporters and editors are being devastated by a financial crisis, not a journalism crisis. Somebody has to fill the void.
  Those of us who work with citizen journalists in online news ventures know better than anyone what a tough, disciplined calling it is. That is why we hire professionals and rigorously train citizens.
  We also know the future is online. And online news produced by citizen journalists can toss traditional media the lifeline they so desperately need.
  Face facts: Traditional media have put journalism last for at least a decade, cutting thousands of jobs and wondering why readers, viewers and listeners flee. America lost a generation of professional journalists. That is a serious threat to self-government. How will we replace them?
  Reanimation of journalism arises in online news ventures. The blogosphere is no longer just for the ranters and ideologues. Increasingly, straight-shooting journalists cut from newsrooms join online non-profit ventures. There they get the opportunity to reemerge as hard-news reporters of yesteryear who investigate stories traditional media now cannot or will not cover.
  By decentralizing the news business, investigative reporters for online non-profits are creating quality coverage of America's most important issues and making it available to all.
  The rise of online non-profit investigative journalism stems not only from the overall newsroom cuts around the nation, but also from the growing vacuum in state-based coverage. Many traditional newsrooms no longer have the staff or financial resources to send a reporter across town, let alone cross-country, to investigate a story.
  For at least a decade, newspapers have curbed reporters' ability to investigate major stories while producing daily beat copy to feed the beast. With the accelerating decline of professional investigative journalists at state-wide newspapers and television stations, how is corruption supposed to be exposed? Who is scrutinizing the mountain of public records and attending meetings? Who is developing sources and asking tough questions to expose fraud, corruption and waste?
  Just recently, a series of state-based watchdog groups proved online news websites can churn out investigative pieces and breaking news stories. The effects of their reporting has impacted the entire nation.
  

  • An online journalist broke the "Phantom Congressional District" story about the chaos in tracking American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds. On November 16, 2009, Jim Scarantino, the investigative reporter for New Mexico's Rio Grande Foundation, discovered that the recovery.gov website listing federal stimulus money was riddled with ludicrous errors. His online story prompted other citizen journalists he had networked with through the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity to look into their own state's recovery.gov data. When all was said and done, these online journalists found that $6.4 billion in stimulus funds had been awarded to 440 non-existent Congressional districts in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four American territories.
  • It was an online journalist in New Hampshire who broke the news when Newt Gingrich admitted during an interview he made an endorsement mistake in a highly contested congressional race.
  • A Watchdog in Texas recently discovered that the Department of Homeland Security lost nearly 1,000 computers in 2008.
  • An online reporter in Minnesota got the attention of the state government when his organization, theFreedom Foundation of Minnesota, released a report proving that Minnesotans were leaving the state due to high taxes.
  • And it was a reporter in Hawaii who delved into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pricey holiday trip, which included an astonishing $10,000 nightly expense and more than $21,000 in security cost to Hawaii's taxpayers.

  In addition to quality news coverage, many of these non-profit online news organization offer a "steal our stuff" policy that provides newspapers with free news. This is an obvious cost advantage over the traditional news wires that charge for content.
  As more non-profit journalism organizations develop, and more online journalists emerge in cities around the nation, the traditional wire services will have stiff competition unless they deal with reality and start picking up the best work these journalists produce. Non-profit journalism organizations as well as citizen journalists are producing news that too often is overlooked by traditional media. Not all those who write online stories are journalists - yet - but the ones who are should get the same access and treatment as those few still employed by newspapers, television and radio.
  At the end of the day, a partnership between newspapers and citizen journalism organizations will be beneficial not only for both, but also for Americans who will be better informed. That's the point. It also is the mission.