On November 20, 2008, CJR and Consumer Reports staged a conference called “Consumer Revolution on the Web: Opportunities and Dangers for Journalism.” The conference was designed to address questions about how professional journalists should cover consumer issues at a time when big-name bloggers, online vigilantes, and anonymous user-reviewers have turned word-of-mouth into a powerful weapon and traditional consumer reporters are falling victim to budget cuts. CJR publisher Evan Cornog moderated a panel discussion on the relative merits of citizen and professional journalism. Sitting on the panel were CUNY professor Jeff Jarvis and veteran New York Times reporter John Darnton. Audio of the panel is available here.
Audio, Events — December 23, 2008 02:37 PM
The New Age of Citizen Journalism
Audio of the Jarvis/Darnton panel on citizen journalism
By The Editors
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Behind the News The Media
"Journalism" professionals STILL can not Identify their competition.
If you have an automotive engineer who writes an insightful three page description of an engine his team is developing every three years, that used to not be a problem. Even though it was just as well written as someone with a journalism or English degree might write.
It was one article every three years that only the man's friends were likely to see. If they shared it, well a few xerox copies mailed around still don't reach that many people even if it pyramids out seven times and by the time the last group gets it it will be a month later if they were being mailed.
Fast foreword to now.
There are thousands of engineers. Every 1095 of them writing once every three years equal one story a day. Written, generally, for free. As in costs no money. As in they are writing for their own vanity.
And on the web, writing in interest forums, or having those forums available as a place their friends might send the article - it will be seen.
Extend this out to other interests, because it carries over across the board.
Journalists keep looking at the picture trying to figure out how content producers are going to be paid in the new media.
The stopper is that they have to compete with people who write about any given subject as well or better than they possibly can WHO DON'T EXPECT TO BE PAID.
When the internet arrived and provided a means for people to disseminate their writings, this became inevitable. I saw it, Drudge saw it, hundreds and hundreds of people saw and have been discussing it for over a decade.
The dinosaur media is late to the party.
Posted by Solitude on Fri 9 Jan 2009 at 01:24 AM