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CJ looking for direction?
Citizen Journalism is under pressure. One the one hand it is still yet to be properly defined and made clear exactly what it is to the public at large. On the other, it has become almost mainstream. The major news organisations all seem to have some kind of CJ section offering exposure of citizen contributed reports and photos. CJ reporting has become so easy with more and more blogging tools, either stand alone such as Blogger.com or via large sites such as newsvine.com. Now everyone can start something but can they all survive? The pressure CJ is under comes not only from how they are going to generate revenue but also, where does it go next? John Ndege's article at Journalism.co.uk ('Citizen journalism start-ups are doomed') paints a rather depressive picture. As more and more CJ websites spring up, the advertising money gets more and more spread out making it difficult to find revenue to support those sites...
Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion also takes up the theme and discusses how the economic downturn is effecting newspapers in general (How Newspapers Can Turn Problems Into Profit)...
So if newspapers are finding it hard, what chance is there for CJ websites who find it hard to get any sort of revenue to keep their writers happy? The answer may come in the direction CJ must go in. There are many ways to accomplish CJ reporting but in my own opinion there are three that could survive. The first is the lone blogger, writing their own opinions and experiences. They have low over heads and will always find an audience. The second is CJ reporting coming from and supported by local newspapers. They have the know how and backing, most of the time by large parent companies. They already have a defined area that they cover. But in the middle there is the third option. The CJ website covering the local area with out any backing and relying solely on unpaid contributions from the local citizens the site is covering. These are the sites that may feel it the most when the advertising money becomes hard to find. So how would the large news agencies respond? Time will tell, just how much will CJ reporting effect their income. Will revenue increase or will they find it a drag on resources and so decrease their commitment? CJ reporting is not dependant on large news agencies and never will be, whether they champion the cause or let it fade away. Citizen Journalism was born from the need to have the truth expressed in ways that the news agencies could not do or unwilling to do. What ever direction it goes in, it still has a long way to go. Posted by Bob Toovey on 09 August 2008 How citizen journalism kept a community informedThis YouTube video was first added in January 08 and relates to the flooding in the north of England that happened previously. The short video discusses how citizen journalism and citizen contributed media played an important part in keeping the local community informed. It as first shown at a citizen journalism conference at Leeds University. Posted by Bob Toovey on 21 June 2008 Blogger arrests increases
Bloggers still face arrest in many countries around the work according to the annual report by the University of Washington. Many detained for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments.
There is more detail from the BBC, Blogger arrests hit record high Posted by Bob Toovey on 20 June 2008 Web CEO, the only tool you need for success on the Internet! Find out more now
Citizen reporting encouraged for West Africa
West Africa is the target of EWAN, the news agency that encourages the people of that region to become active Citizen Reporters. The countries that this site covers include; Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Here is a snip from the about page...
Posted by Bob Toovey on 09 May 2008 Network mixes traditional and user generated contentAnother site added to our search engine is CyberJournalist.net. This is a news gathering network that also has a job listing feature as well.
It seems to be aim more at the traditional journalist but mixed with user content. Interesting mix. Posted by Bob Toovey on 26 March 2008 Fake news and product pimping
Farhad Manjoo has a book out called, “True enough: learning to live in the post-fact society”. The book, “argues that new communications technologies are loosening the culture's grip on what people once called "objective reality." His blog has an excerpt which covers TV 'fakery' and how it seems to be taking over local TV in the US (UK as well?), something I have already discussed. Robin Raskin appeared to be a stay at home mom offering warnings on how pornography was making it's way on to Apple iPods.
Found via BoingBoing. Posted by Bob Toovey on 21 March 2008 Leicester based site has it's eye on citizen reporting![]() There are not exactly a lot of community run news agencies in the UK, in fact Citizen Eye based in Leicester could well be the first. John Coster setup the agency following a meeting of the Black Minority Ethnic (BME) Citizens Jury held in 2006. The site is doing very well and feeding community news to community run websites. Here is what the about page says about the site...
The site itself looks very professional, well designed and easy to navigate. There are many sections including video's, events, columns, resources and 'your community'. Citizen Eye is a good example of a local 'citizen contributed' news gathering, focusing directly on the community it is serving. Many more of these are needed for the UK (Added to the CitizenPress search engine) Posted by Bob Toovey on 19 March 2008 CNN launches site for citizen contributed news reports![]()
CNN has launched iReport, the YouTube of Citizen Journalism. The site will feature material that does not fit in with the editorial guide lines of CNN. According to Journalism.co.uk ...
The site seems to be in beta and to be honest it looks a lot like other video sharing sites. Hopefully the content will make it stand out.
Posted by Bob Toovey on 05 March 2008 Technology and sports, two new sites for the search engineTwo new sites have been added to our search engine. The first is Digidave.org, David Cohn writes about, “the people, technology, theory and practice of Citizen Journalism”. Thats where I found the second site, Bleacher Report. Bleacher Report calls itself, “the open source sports network”. Sports reports written by citizen journalists. It has just come out of beta and looks to be a good site. Small snip from their about page...
Posted by Bob Toovey on 20 February 2008 Citizen Reporting from South Asia![]() Added today to the CitizenPress Search engine is SACRN.com, the South Asian Citizen Reporters Network. The website has stories contributed by writers from places like Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. From the email sent to me from the website team...
The about page has more info but I would like to highlight one paragraph particularly...
Very courageous. Posted by Bob Toovey on 18 February 2008 |
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