Citizen Journalism is the wrong term
October 14, 2008
Hey bloggers, listen up! Writing article responses, blogging, publishing opinion on the web, printing a paper, collaborating with journalists is not journalism.
What these bloggers or smart citizens are doing is great and jornalists can learn and complement their craft with the valuable information that these folks publish. Journalist Steve Outing suggests that some bloggers act as journalists, some do not. Some bloggers see themselves as journalists; some do not. And let me tell you, I don’t know who coined the term “Citizen Journalist”. I don’t know if it was one of those who saw himself as a journalist or not. But, I want to make it clear that blogging is not the same as “doing Journalism”. Unless you apply the principles of journalism, fact-check, know the Journalism code of Ethics, are commited, fair, accurate, balanced, unbiased, etc, etc. Unless you have that and use it, you are not a journalist(I’m talking about the bloggers of course). It is true that journalist blog.
Of course, bloggers and reader’s responses play a vital role in reflecting the views of the people. The journalist can act better and do a better job in finding out what the people need. The job of the journalist is to watchdogg for the people, the journalist look out for the citizens and the citizens have to let the journalist know what they need and how they feel. Jeff Jarvis’ thoughts on that are very smart, he tells us that “news is a conversation, not just a lecture. The story doesn’t end when it’s published, but rather just gets started as the public begins to do its part – discussing the story, adding to it, and correcting it”. Very wise. And he adds that the end of the story is not when the it gets printed, he says. “That’s when the public can add questions, corrections, perspective. That will improve news. And it also will change our relationship with the public.” Involvement providing feedback to the journalist is very important.
Of course, people can get dirty, sweaty, dig out the dirt and find out the truth and of course apply the principles mentioned above. That’s when they can really be called “citizen journalists”.
What’s called citizen journalism, I would call CITIZEN PUBLISHING or COLLABORATORS.
