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
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- Hey readers: They’re bluffing! (maybe) The need to put political bargaining positions in context
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"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
Well Solitude,
You maybe are right, maybe not. Think about this, what would happen if an interested "source" ( meaning people or groups that generate news and information) tells by itself a new, the resuslts of a test or whatever they are interested the citizens know. And this is the quid of the question ( i apollogize for my forgotten lessons on grammar, i am one of those always learning english spanish), if we belive our politics, the press departments of any company or the comments of a "paid under the table" blogger, how can we be sure that this is true, or not an interested information?.
Of course, the history has shown how many times the press has been guided to support a war ( and we do not need to think in Vietnam)using false information that only has been discovered afterwards. But they did!!, they keep on investigating, until the truth saw the light.
So I am talking about an independent opinion and the ethics of a journalist that always contrast its informations and its sources, in the way to find the hidden truth.
We can search in discussion forums, in many blogs...in order to have an idea about something, for example technical questions, but it means time, to find and time to contrast.
Yeah the journalist are paid because of their job, why not?, do you think your neighbour would be a better president for your country, or the person who will manage your invesments?, well that´s a pretty way to belive your own beautiful lies, until it becomes unstoppable, them you will ask yourself what went wrong?.
Can i be a better actor than Tom hanks?, maybe, but not without the studies and the experience as junior journalist, and the practices in a university radio, where only my willing to be a good journalist push me to "loose" my time.
Yeah, it is better to belive the point of view of someone which is invisible for me, not for the FBI:) and writtes funny, with some pretty pictures and comments that looks like my collegue telling me a secret.
A journalist talks and interviews the right people, those profesionals who can give a technical view, but it is the journalist the one who looks for the truth, who cares about people ( even when they are just looking for the Pullitzer, more when not) and those who are being prosecuted all around the world because they say and show what somepeople don´t want to be know.
Posted by Jose Alberto on Mon 24 Aug 2009 at 01:48 PM