Citizen journalism is challenging traditional journalism by allowing ordinary people to report news using modern technology. It aims to give power to citizens and provide alternative sources of information beyond mainstream media. While it promotes democratic values like empowerment, some argue it lacks the training and standards of traditional journalism. As problems arose from inaccurate citizen reports, some sites have started implementing rules for objectivity, ethics and verification that are core to professional journalism. Overall, citizen journalism remains a developing concept that blurs lines between professionals and amateurs.
Citizen journalism is challenging traditional journalism by allowing ordinary people to report news using modern technology. It aims to give power to citizens and provide alternative sources of information beyond mainstream media. While it promotes democratic values like empowerment, some argue it lacks the training and standards of traditional journalism. As problems arose from inaccurate citizen reports, some sites have started implementing rules for objectivity, ethics and verification that are core to professional journalism. Overall, citizen journalism remains a developing concept that blurs lines between professionals and amateurs.
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Case study 1 Citizen Journalism - Power to The People
Citizen journalism is challenging traditional journalism by allowing ordinary people to report news using modern technology. It aims to give power to citizens and provide alternative sources of information beyond mainstream media. While it promotes democratic values like empowerment, some argue it lacks the training and standards of traditional journalism. As problems arose from inaccurate citizen reports, some sites have started implementing rules for objectivity, ethics and verification that are core to professional journalism. Overall, citizen journalism remains a developing concept that blurs lines between professionals and amateurs.
Citizen journalism is challenging traditional journalism by allowing ordinary people to report news using modern technology. It aims to give power to citizens and provide alternative sources of information beyond mainstream media. While it promotes democratic values like empowerment, some argue it lacks the training and standards of traditional journalism. As problems arose from inaccurate citizen reports, some sites have started implementing rules for objectivity, ethics and verification that are core to professional journalism. Overall, citizen journalism remains a developing concept that blurs lines between professionals and amateurs.
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Power to The People?
Posted by: cmfr
Posted on: July 6, 2007, 1:25 pm [social_share/]
On the rise of citizen journalism
Power to The People? By Melanie Y. Pinlac MODERN TECHNOLOGY has brought about changes in the landscape of news media. Today, another new journalistic form is challenging the norms of traditional journalism. This new form—citizen journalism—is challenging the notion that only trained and professional journalists can come up with reliable news reports. Advocates of this new form want to escape from the mainstream media’s alleged monopoly over information and to give this power to inform to ordinary citizens. Advocates say that citizen journalism provides the public a source of news other than the mainstream media. In MediaShift, a weblog that tracks the effects of new digital technologies on media, editor Mark Glaser defines citizen journalists as “people without professional journalism training (using) 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.” Citizen journalism initiators also think they could thrive without the principles that serve as the foundation of traditional news media. One of these principles, objective reporting, is something citizen journalists could live without, they say.
A break from tradition
In an interview published in Japan Media Review (http://www.japanmediareview.com), Oh Heon-Yo, founder of the South Korean website OhmyNews, said citizens without journalistic practice (or citizen journalists) should not be expected to write straight, objective articles. ”We not only break the concept of ‘who reporters are’, but also… the formula of ‘reporters are supposed to be like blah, blah, blah,’” he said. “Articles, including both facts and opinions, are acceptable when they are good.” Oh, a former reporter for the alternative magazine Mal, launched the pioneer citizen journalism site in Asia, OhmyNews (http://www.ohmynews.com/) in 2000. This is in answer to the discontent that citizens feel about conservative news media and their desire for a space where they could talk about themselves. In his interview with Wired.com, Oh explained, “We wanted to say goodbye to 20th-century journalism where people only saw things through the eyes of the mainstream, conservative media.” The site started with only four reporters. Today, it has 53 staff members and approximately 38,000 citizen reporters. These citizen reporters are paid according to the ranking of their stories—”basic,” “bonus,” or “special.” Other than giving ordinary Koreans the chance to be reporters, OhmyNews was said to have opened new ground for political reform in the country. For example, it helped then candidate Roh Moo-Hyun win in the 2002 presidential elections. According to reports, OhmyNews allegedly gave Roh the attention conservative press denied him. Today, other Asians like the Japanese have attempted to build their own citizen journalism-inspired websites. Filipino initiatives In the Philippines, the idea of transforming ordinary Filipinos into citizen journalists is slowly gaining acceptance. Perhaps because of the low Internet penetration rate and the high web maintenance fee, most citizen journalism sites in the Philippines are owned by bigger or mainstream media organizations. This is different from other countries where citizen journalism thrives in stand-alone web sites like OhmyNews. Some examples are the Sun.Star’s “Citizen Watch” and GMANews.TV’s “YouScoop”. Sun.Star Network’s “Citizen Watch: The Arroyo Presidency” invites ordinary readers to post analyses and stories on develop-ments involving President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s admi-nistration. This is apart from their regular Sun.Star website, where daily news reports are written by the newspaper’s pool of professional reporters. “Citizen Watch” was launched after the success of the “Arroyo Watch” project in 2005. The “Arroyo Watch” weblog was formed to track the updates regarding the “Hello, Garci” scandal. The “YouScoop” of GMANews.TV, on the other hand, tries to involve citizens in online journalism by giving them a free hand in uploading pictures and videos that they think are newsworthy. Not just online Another noticeable feature of Philippine citizen journalism is that it is not limited to the online medium. Acknowledging the success of online citizen journalism in other Asian countries, big media companies have realized the potential of citizen-driven news media. Besides fulfilling a social responsibility—that is, empo-wering the people through news—they are also able to cover areas where media companies do not have regular reporters. Today, the Philippine traditional media—print and broadcast—have used citizen journalism in short messaging and multimedia messaging systems. In the 2007 elections, ABS-CBN launched a project which was supposedly patterned after the idea of citizen journalism. “Boto Mo, i-Patrol Mo” gave ordinary voters the power to report unusual and suspicious activities in their neighborhoods through their mobile phones. ABS-CBN then flashed the reports on air. In an interview with PJR Reports, Maria Ressa, ABS-CBN’s head of News and Public Affairs, said, “the overarching idea for this “Boto Mo, i-Patrol Mo” was empowerment using technology and mass media in order to ensure the credibility of the elections.” She added that through this initiative, voters were also given the capability to hold officials accountable. Beyond writing letters to the editor and contributing to reader-driven columns, some Philippine dailies want their readers to venture into citizen journalism. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, for example, calls on its readers to “share the good news where you are—and the bad.” In its Metro Citizen’s Call section, the Inquirer features text and photos sent by concerned readers which range from personal appeals and criticisms about local governance to alleged illegal activities in their neighborhoods. Redefining journalism Still, the idea of having a press dominated by those who do not have any idea of journalism is absurd for some journalists. They believe that citizen journalism should follow the basic principles observed by traditional news media. According to Vergel Santos, chair of BusinessWorld’s editorial board, the idea that anybody can be a journalist poses a danger to the profession. He also says such thinking cheapens the profession. ”Journalism calls, not only for the understanding of certain skills, but the acquisition of certain skills at certain levels. So, being able to build a site and disseminate whatever information you wish to disseminate to audiences does not constitute journalism,” Santos stressed. He compares journalism to carpentry. Having the tools for carpentry does not make one a carpenter, unless one has learned the proper skills needed in the craft, he said. “I’m not saying that citizens cannot be journalists. If they train, they might be able to do it,” Santos said. “But to be able to practice journalism without training, I don’t understand how they will do it.” Danilo Arao, a University of the Philippines journalism professor, says giving readers the chance to have their comments and stories see print or be uploaded “are good initiatives.” But, he adds, citizens must be given the necessary skills and knowledge to become journalists. For example, according to Arao, “Boto Mo, i-Patrol Mo” may have manifested the power of the citizen’s text messages in helping the network in gathering data but it is not enough to call this citizen journalism. Arao says what may qualify as citizen journalism in the Philippines is the concept called peryodismong yapak or “barefoot journalism.” This is where “ordinary citizens are taught how to write stories and produce community papers.” And some advocates of citizen journalism seem to agree with Santos and Arao. Back to tradition Recently, there had been noticeable efforts by citizen journalism sites to enforce rules normally associated with traditional journalism. Legal as well as ethical problems caused by unverified and inaccurate reports that appeared in their sites could have caused this change among advocates of citizen journalism. OhmyNews, for example, has been a victim of hoaxes such as a report on the supposed assassination of Microsoft founder Bill Gates from a fake CNN site. Now, OhmyNews enforces strict registration rules for citizen journalists and has asked its reporters to disclose details concerning their bank accounts to the editorial board. Some websites have also required their contributors to abide by certain ethical rules. Sun.Star’s “Citizen Watch” asks writers to take into consi-deration the CyberJournalist.net’s Bloggers’ Code of Ethics, a modified form of the US Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. One provision states that bloggers, like journalists, should be “honest and fair in gathering, reporting, and interpreting information.” Meanwhile, some online citizen journalism sites, especially in the United States, have realized the importance of news values and other basic journalistic standards. They have already started offering Journalism 101 classes to interested citizen journalists under their management. But a single class in journalism cannot provide all the needed skills in becoming a journalist. One must have constant practice and training. After all, there is no such thing as an overnight journalist. Comments are closed.