Last summer the Dutch Journalist and columnist Luuk Koelman declared citizen journalism dead. He came to that conclusion after a striking experiment. And admitted, it is hilarious to read on his blog how he tricked de newspaper Algemeen Dagblad by writing completely made-up articles as ‘citizen journalist’ in Japan.

However, although citizen journalism might be a tricky business from the perspective of traditional ethics of journalism, it seems an irreversible fact that social media developments have changed the field. Last Monday, the 13^th of September, we discussed the consequences and possibilities of these developments with several people active in the field of (citizen-) journalism. In this first of two blogs some preliminary findings are presented. The discussion will be continued during the State of Social Media Summit the 28^th and 29^th of October.

Citizen- and new journalism initiatives

Some of the participants of the round table represented initiatives working specifically on the theme such as Marokko Media, a portal with about 45.000 unique visitors a day. Marokko Media is publisher of sites such as Marokko.nl and nieuws.marokko.nl. In the near future they want to focus especially on expanding the latter. Projectleader Gijs van Beek considers it an opportunity for the particular network of Marokko media, which consists predominantly of people of the Dutch-Moroccan community, to provide an alternative perspective in opposition to the mainstream media.

The NOS Net initiative was ample represented by three of its editors. NOS Net is busy creating a new network of sources for the main news institution in the Netherlands. Citizens who have knowledge on a specific subject become part of the network and instead of checking facts with the usual suspects the NOS is now able approach a wide variety of people for fact checking.

Another striking initiative in terms of new journalism is the VJ movement. With a global network of over 150 professional video journalists and editorial cartoonists (so, actually not citizen journalism) VJM brings stories from reporters on the ground. Their slogan is: ‘There is more than one truth’. Although they emphasize that they do not work with citizen journalism, their perspective on journalism in the near future is relevant for the discussion.

Interesting examples of citizen journalism initiatives who where not present at the round table discussion are Indymedia, Gobal voices, Ushahidi, Nowpublic, Africa Interactive/Africanews, Overwoerden.nl, 3voor12 lokaal. All of them have found new ways of newsgathering with the help of social media.

Can all citizens be journalists?

During the round table conversation the question arose to what extent citizens are able to produce quality news. One of the positions taken in this discussion defends that the role of the citizen is, or should be, limited to providing information. To transform that information into valuable and quality news professional journalistic skills are indispensible. From this perspective citizens have a role to play but well educated journalists remain essential. Journalists are in fact the final editors. Thus, as the NOS Net initiative does, social media can be used to extend and improve citizen networks, or in other words, use them as tool for active crowd sourcing. But social media initiatives cannot really replace the quality news brands.

On the other hand it can be questioned whether qualitative journalism produced by a small elite fits the contemporary developments. There are, for example, certainly some blogs that have authority in specific niches. It might even be slightly arrogant to claim that citizens are merely able to provide ‘half-fabricates’ that should be selected and transformed by ‘professional people’. Is it unthinkable that citizens and journalists cooperate as equals?

The discussion is far from settled. Are social media mere tools to boost the ancient journalistic method of informants? Or do they create a whole new reality, a new form of journalism? There seem to be examples and defenders of both perspectives.

In the next blog more on the forms of citizen journalism. How is it organized and how should it be organized in the new future?

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 16th, 2010 at 17:22 and is filed under Journalism.