Ask an Expert About the Future of 'Citizen Journalism'

People ranging from Doc Searls to J.D. Lasica to Dan Gillmor to Craig Newmark have talked about how "citizen journalism" is supplanting and/or augmenting professional reporting. (FYI: One of the groundbreaking moments in "citizen journalism" happened right here on Slashdot.) This week's interviewee, NYU professor Jay Rosen, is not only a long-time proponent of civic journalism, but has now started NewAssignment.net with seed money from Craig Newmark, a $10,000 grant from the Sunlight Foundation and, last week, $100,000 from Reuters. Jay Rosen is obviously not just an academic or theoretician, but is actually doing things, which means he can answer almost any question you may have about citizen (or civic) journalism. Usual Slashdot interview rules apply.

Here are some links to articles you may want to read before you post your question(s), if only to avoid duplication:

Web Users Open the Gates
By Jay Rosen
washingtonpost.com
Monday, June 19, 2006

'Blogosphere' spurs government oversight
By Richard Wolf
usatoday.com
September 11, 2006

Open Source Journalism
By Richard Poynder
poynder.blogspot.com
March 28, 2006

Who killed the newspaper?
The Economist
August 24, 2006

AMATEUR HOUR -Journalism without journalists.
by Nicholas Lemann
The New Yorker
July 31, 2006

U.S. Government Should be Focus of Investigative Reports
by Mark Glaser
PBS.org/mediashift
September 7, 2006

Where do you see newspapers' role in this?

[Stick_Fig]

First off, my credentials: I'm the former employee of an experimental newspaper, Bluffton Today (http://www.blufftontoday.com), located in Bluffton, South Carolina. It's an exciting place, let me tell you. The focus has been on reverse publishing but at the same time tempering blogs with traditional journalism. The staff still writes articles; they still edit heavily. They use the web only to the degree where it doesn't dip into libel and slander and builds on its strengths. My question to you is, do you think Bluffton is on the right track? It felt like, in the 15 months I was there, they definitely were, but I'm a biased party. I left thinking, "If only newspapers did more of this..." I know what I'm betting the farm on in my career, and it isn't tired, boring, traditional journalism. It isn't the straight and narrow of blogs, either. Rather, I feel that it's important to look at both sides and find how they can work together, because God knows there's some 60-year-old editor somewhere who won't look at Bluffton as anything more than a gimmick. I'm gonna be that guy in the newsroom fighting the good fight to get more untraditional voices into the the paper in more places than the editorial page.

Money

[truthsearch]

Do you believe that as money flows into civic journalism that it'll change the equation? Obviously there are some people who's primary goal is to become famous and/or make money through more open journalism. Will the large community of contributors flush out those with less altruistic intentions? I guess I'm really asking will civic journalism be self-correcting as it gets bigger? Or is there a way it may become just as corrupted as much of the current mainstream professional journalism?

Re:How to Get More Respect

[Bob_Villa]

Get hired by the corporate media?

Seriously, when I think about an internet journalist (blogger) I think about someone who is sitting at home, doesn't go out and look for stories but just looks them up online and posts whatever he/she finds with their own added (probably made up) info. They probably wanted to be a real journalist but couldn't get hired. The truth can hurt, you know.

When you think about a journalist for the New York Times, or Washington Post, etc... you think of people who go out, find the story, interview important people, meet with sources in dark alleys or secluded areas. Maybe I'm wrong to think that way, but how credible do you think you are on your couch, half-naked in front of your computer?

Now, how do you change that? I'd like to see you at the press conference, jockeying with the other people trying to get Bush or whoever to answer your questions. Or I'd like to see you downtown during the protest, filming it and interviewing people about why they are protesting. Get the idea? Maybe some of you do that, but I sure don't think so when I think of internet journalists.

Plagiarism and Ethics?

[goombah99]

Lately there's been a few incidents of Plagiarism in the news, not to mention some wholesale ethical breaches of faked stories (e.g. Blair at the NY times and "a million Little pieces"). But the thing is the reason those are news is that they are both exceptional and something that is specifically drummed in to any professional journalist not to do. In deed breaking this taboo is probably even more of a sin to the the fellow journalists than to the general public because of this entrenched ethic.

Yet we know that on college campuses, where we can measure the phenomena, Plagiarism is comparatively rampant. So evidently the common man cannot restrain himself.

It seems to me this is a serious issue for any new journlism form with a low barrier to entry and a high degree of anonimity for the author. How does this ethos get enforced in such a realm?

A related question is the ethic division of commentary and news. We know that's become a problem in the media for some outlets where management has a thumb on the content. But the traditional news organs, especially newspapers, still refrain to the most part. Indeed the NY times just went so far as to remove the typset justification from any article that comtained any sort of analysis or opinion, and reserving the typsetting for only traditional factual journalism stories so the difference is apparent to the reader from the start. How do we reinforce that ethos in the untrain journalist?

Re:How to Get More Respect

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>When you think about a journalist for the New York Times, or Washington Post, etc... you think of people who go out, find the story, interview important people, meet with sources in dark alleys or secluded areas. Maybe I'm wrong to think that way

Thirty years ago you would have been right. Journalists used to be taught "legwork", going out and getting a story.

Today's mainstream journalists show video from "photo opportunities" and report "he said/he said". They sit in the Green Zone and send home reports from their Iraqi stringers. If they ask awkward questions at press conferences then they find their supply of "leaks" cut off and in extreme cases they're banned from the White House. When is the last time you saw a "scoop"?

The opportunity for citizen journalists is to pick up the abandoned profession of journalism. There is a need and (I hope) an audience.