Taking it one step too far?

The top story in today's news is a security alert at Heathrow airport after a man with a rucksack climbed the fence and ran at the path of a plane. It all came too nothing, but a security breach at one of the worlds busiest airports is defiantly news and of course it deserves a massive amount of coverage.

What I don't understand is the he piece at the bottom of the news item on the BBC website which says

Are you at Heathrow? Did you see the incident? Send us your pictures and information using the forms below.

Send your pictures to yourpics@bbc.co.uk, text them to 61124 or you have a large file you can upload here.

Surely in terms of citizen journalism this is the equivalent of scraping at the very bottom of the barrel. What are they expecting? Someone to have filmed the man getting in? The man wasn't near any of the terminals so I can't see how anyone could have been filming him. And from that distance even if they were they wouldn't be able to see much. I haven’t seen any evidence of citizen journalists contributing to this story so far. Maybe I’ll be proved wrong, but I don't see how appeals can be made for citizen journalists to come forward with their pictures and videos when it comes to this story.

Third Eyes

I argued in our group presentation that citizen journalism didn’t have a place in sports journalism, but I have found one example where citizen journalism has helped a sport, Formula 1 one of my favourite sports!

The weather during last years Japanese Grand Prix was really bad. Torrential rain was a constant disruption to the drivers. The amount of water on the track caused Fernado Alonso’s McClaren Mercedes to crash, hitting a wall and calling out the safety car. When the safety car is out the drivers are must not pass it or any of their fellow competitors.

No one expected much to happen with the cars proceeding round the circuit in procession while the parts of Alonso’s car were cleared from the track. But on lap 45 the TV cameras showed the aftermath of a collision between third placed Sebastian Vettel and second placed Mark Webber. Vettel looked set to be punished for causing the collision before this evidence videoed by a spectator came to light

The video shows first placed Lewis Hamilton braking heavily in order to not go past the safety car. You can see how Mark Webber had to do the same in order not to pass Hamilton and be punished for overtaking the safety car. However the inexperienced Sebastian Vettel did not have enough time to brake and avoid hitting the back of Mark Webber with the resulting collision removing them both from the race.

Following the emergence of the video Vettel escaped punishment as the video showed the crash was not his fault, something TV cameras didn’t pick up. If a citizen journalist had not been videoing the race at this point a young inexperienced driver could have been punished for something he could not have done much to stop.

Lewis Hamilton was investigated for dangerous driving but in the end he wasn’t charged with anything by the FIA.

Perhaps this isn’t the only instance of a spectator’s video resolving a dispute during a sporting fixture. The TV Cameras can’t be everywhere to see what a referee might miss or may not be able to see. So perhaps sports journalism in the future will become more influenced by the extra camera angles in the crowd.

What do you think?

Batten down the hatches - there's more to come

Well today, as expected, we've seen the 'eye-witness' pictures.

Thankfully I've heard no accounts of anyone getting injured in the capturing of these images and accounts. If you have, please don't hesitate to tell me.

I still am going to stand by my argument regardless of what's luckily been a seemingly injury-free day which has inspired and churned out a lot of citizen journalism.

On Saturday our entire course received an email from our course leader, Dr. Denis Gartside. He explains and reiterates the extreme weather warning and ends with this statement:

"I will be in on Monday at 0900 and I do not want any crews out before I give the OK.Remember NO STORY IS WORTH A LIFE."

In the morning he signed off a couple of risk assessments, and advised the crews to be safe and cautious.

We are part of the news gathering system albeit at a trainee level. We are being taught and advised to act responsibly and assess the situation with a level head. If it was considered to dangerous to get the pictures and the audio from various destinations, Denis would not have allowed us to go.

I state again - would this be the immediate, premeditated thought process of a citizen journalist when he/she hears news outlets saying "Don't forget to send us your pictures"?

Was this pragmatic and responsible thought process in the mind of the person who took this photo?

Or the owners of these camera phones who took this footage in Newquay and Perranporth?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plXNgvOC5jk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ-WRTurWb8

Maybe it was, maybe the photographer and the mobile 'cameramen' are in a highly safe and assessed position, I am not able to comment as I don't know. What do you think?

If however, people are taking to doing such things as listed on the BBC website earlier today as this:

"Police criticised "mindless" youths seen playing "chicken" with large waves breaking over seafront walls.

The youths were spotted at the height of the storm in the Tinside Pool area of Plymouth in Devon.

"This is a particularly mindless activity to pursue in light of the powerful weather," said a spokesman.

They were not only risking their lives, but those of the emergency services who would be required to rescue them should they be swept into the sea, added the spokesman."

...then what's stopping them doing the same thing and taking a video or photo and sending it in to news rooms? Who's to say they haven't already done so?

Well, there's more stormy weather due tomorrow. We're still being told to keep away from the coast and keep safe. One to take note of I think.

Take care.

A storm's brewing...

Today, Britain is bracing itself for a big storm that's expected to hit tomorrow. Particularly affected areas of the UK are expected to be Devon, Cornwall and Wales, and other areas across the south and west.

The BBC website at the moment says this:

"The Environment Agency is urging people to stay away from coastal areas, particularly in Wales, and the south west and north west of England, from Sunday to Wednesday.

David Rooke, head of risk management at the Environment Agency, told the BBC the predicted combination of up to 80mph gusts and higher than normal tides are likely to lead to flooding in coastal areas.

John Mosedale, from Environment Agency Wales, advised people against going to the coast to watch the rough seas and big waves because of the danger of being swept out to sea. "

This is the current question the BBC requesting viewers to comment on:

"Do you live in the regions which could be affected by the storms? How are you preparing? Send us your experiences using the form below."

Earlier this morning, (before 9am Sunday 9th March) the storm was high up on the news agenda on BBC News 24. Despite the severe weather warnings and the warnings that lives could be at risk, in ONE instance, one of the presenters remarked after saying how bad it was going to be, something along the lines of 'and don't forget to send in your piccies.'

Sometime after this comment was made, the main presenter spoke directly into the camera more-or-less reiterating not to go near the coast, promenades etc. as it's highly dangerous and you could be killed.

The previous remark is direct encouragement of citizen journalism. Many people, arguably will place their personal safety over 'getting the stormy-Kodak-moment'. But what about those who may go out because of the encouragement given my the news outlets. They may put their lives at risk to contribute to the news.

Media outlets may send out their cameramen and reporters to areas which will be hit by this storm, but these outings are professionally organised with risk assessments, and insured by the corporation. Conversely, if the risk assessment shows risks are too high, the organisation will not allow it to go ahead.

Will a citizen journalist think the same way? I highly doubt it. The only insurance they may get to claim on is that of life.

What threat to traditional reporting practices does this pose - the potential bad (in more ways than one) news of dead viewers.

We will wait and see what 'piccies' we get tomorrow.

Where it all really began...

This is the moment the planes crashed into the twin towers....there is no footage that a journalist could film post the incidence that can describe what actually happened here. This is where Citizen journalism really came into its own and it is events such as these that really define what citizen journalism stands for in most peoples minds...not blogs or have your says. It is in situations like this that Citizen journalists are worth their weight in gold to the news industry and for all the negative elements that come out of it - for pieces like this it all becomes worth it...

SOPHIE

Citizen journalists and journalists...a difference??

Continuing further still into the idea of policing citizen journalism, France is not alone in threatening to prosecute them (and this goes back to what Danny mentioned in his previous comment on the idea of the government controlling whats written). In America Video blogger Josh Woolf spent 226 days in prison - A RECORD STAY IN PRISON FOR ANY AMERICAN JOURNALIST.

The reason? He published some video footage of the G8 summit protests in San Francisco...the police wanted to see the entire footage to inveestigate an arson attack but Woolf refused stating that "AS A JOURNALIST, IT WOULD ENDANGER HIS SOURCES"

Woolf was held in contempt of court and sentenced to jail but it raised important issues...mainly the confusion of whether citizen journalists can access the legal protections given to journalist. It becomes a very very grey area and no-one seems to have a answer.


SOPHIE

What do the editors think?

Now, the BBC constructed an experiment using a 'citizen journalist' called Frankie Roberto in 2006. To read the full article go to 'A citizen among journalists'.

It says at the beginning:

"News, almost without exception, is provided by trained journalists who are paid to do the job. But the rise of the "citizen journalist", aided by the camera phone and the blog, is rivalling the authority of traditional reporting. So what if the two cultures were to collide?"

This is what the BBC experiment wanted to try and answer. Which is great, bearing in mind what we're looking at; to what extent does citizen journalism pose a threat to traditional broadcasting techniques?

Well, as Frankie Roberto says, some events that have happened in the not so distant past, "have even come to rely upon this "user-generated content"...where professional journalists and cameramen haven't been able to get to the scene fast enough."

He cites the Thames whale sighting, the Buncefield oil explosion, and the 7/7 bombings as good examples where all news coverage had photos from passers-by and published them online and in the press.

He continues to say;

"Blogging takes this one step further, by allowing people to publish their photography, news and opinion, while retaining complete control over the content. If you've got a story to tell, you no longer need to go to a news publisher to tell it."

But one of the questions, which I have touched on before, is how do news editors decide what is important and what is not, and what can be used as a representational prospect for an angle on a news story?

Well, in the day-to-day running of a newsroom, editors have to decide which press release is real news, or is just a PR campaign, or how to make sure a news story is reported fairly, objectively and accurately. How should they rank the stories in order of importance and who should they use as sources for quotes, reaction and information? Now, however, editors also have to incorporate the decision about how to use user-generated content with similar objectives of treatment.

On 'The Editors' Blog' part of the BBC website, in January this year Peter Horrocks wrote about the 'Value of citizen journalism'. On the 7th January he gave a speech to the University of Leeds' Institute of Communications Studies on this subject, and later that day posted his speech with his discursive additions, and of course, a 'have your say'.

He says:

"Text messages and e-mails from our audiences have brought a valuable additional aspect to our journalism. But how much attention should we pay to people who care strongly enough about an issue to send a message? They might either be typical of a wide part of the audience perhaps, or just a tiny minority."

What I particularly like about this blog is that he discusses the BBC's treatment of Benazir Bhutto's assassination. He mentions about how the BBC considered, albeit fleetingly, to freeze the comment recommendation facility on the BBC website for this story.

He says this, "tells you something about the power and potential danger of the new intensity of the interaction between the contributing public, journalists and audiences."

The reason for this potential freeze of that portion of the BBC's website is because of comments posted by members of the public which ostensibly over-looked the analysis of Bhutto's death, politically, 'humanitarianly', and prospectively. Instead, many of the 'most recommended' posts were vocalisations against Islam.

Peter Horrocks says:

"...why did we briefly consider freezing this forum? A small part of our thinking was that in the context of the death of a significant international figure, who was herself Muslim, we thought that the weight of remarks could be offensive to some users...Might some readers believe that such views as 'most recommended' represented an editorial line by BBC News? I suspect not, but there was at least that danger. But our real question concerned the editorial value of the comments and how far they should influence our coverage more widely."

Despite the brief debate about whether to turn off the forum, in the end the BBC chose not to. Mr Horrocks mentions the fact that the BBC has made a commitment to listening to the views of its audience. Interestingly however, he then goes on to say he has no doubt, "...how any attempt to down-play or disregard their comments would have been seen - as censorship and a conspiracy by the BBC to prevent their strongly held views."

So, are the BBC and other news corporations who have thrown open the doors to citizen participation in the news stuck between a rock and a hard place? Now they've opened these doors, it's like that cunning 'savoury snack' advert, 'once you pop you just can't stop'. The participating public have a taste for contribution and like a hungry hyena, want more.

There is no doubt in people's minds that in many respects this participation and contribution is a good and fruitful thing, providing a whole host of additions and extemporisation on news stories and angles. As a consequence of opening the news floodgates to public commentators, anyone can say what they like and the media have to sift through this, as we've said before. As a consequence of this, if user-generated content is being sifted through and analysed for editorial processes and reasons, it can now be seen by some as censorship, without a licence necessarily to do so.

That word, licence also throws up another debate. If the BBC for example is committed to listening to the views of it's audience, yet are syphoning-off the editorially compliant comments of it's audience, think about who is paying the licence fee which supports the BBC; the audience. So surely, if the audience are paying for it, why shouldn't their views be uncensored and freely held in the public sphere? Well of course there are many reasons against this...legal reasons, ethical reasons, taste and decency etc. etc. All of which if weren't adhered to, the audience would also have something to say about, and the Attorney General for that matter!

Peter Horrocks says;

"Of course in one sense it is very useful to understand the strength of feeling on this issue amongst our audiences..." and of course, inviting people to have their say is also useful for editors to appreciate how their audiences are reacting to the news agenda the organisation is setting.

Now the BBC have abolished the original way it was organised to gather the news. Previously it was based around four main departments. Three of these departments have been dissolved which now leaves two "new multimedia" departments, "a multimedia newsroom that is responsible for the core of the BBC News website, our daily TV News operation...and our radio news summaries and bulletins." (Peter Horrocks, Editors Blog, 7th January 2008)

The other department is:

"a multimedia programmes department with responsibility for interviews, investigation and analysis in our current affairs programmes...Within the multimedia newsroom department...we are now preparing a major physical re-organisation to accompany the structural changes...and close to the middle of [this] operation will be our User-Generated Content unit. It will be right alongside the newsgathering teams that deploy our conventional journalistic resources. And the UGC team will be deploying and receiving our unconventional journalistic resources - information and opinion from the audience." (Ibid.)

The concept under scrutiny regarding how much weight should news organisations apply to UGC is a difficult one, but it's certainly one worth considering. The BBC is considering it so much that evidently they're even shaking up the blueprint of BBC HQ...what the effects of this office furniture coalition will be, I'm sure we'll be seeing in future news broadcasts. Already though an effect is that UGC is fully integrated, even in a literal sense, and although the editors think in many respects it is a good addition to news sources, the double-edged sword is still there - the 'be Damned if you do, Damned if you don't' attitude where they cannot please everybody. If they censor/filtrate the UGC (comments etc.) then they could be accused of a dictatorship over the news, if they don't, they run the risk of offending people.

I'll leave you with what I think is one of the most interesting statements that Peter Horrocks makes:

"There is no doubt that the stronger voice of the audience is having a beneficial effect on the range of stories and perspectives that journalists cover...we have an extremely rich range of responses from the audience. That gives us quotes we can use and interviewees we can put on air who have germane real life experiences. Often those experiences challenge or contradict the assumptions that news decision makers or the people who traditionally generate news might hold."

It makes us think, it gives us wider sources, it keeps us in touch with our audiences and invites them to join in and keeps us on our toes...nice!

For more information:

In Peter Horrocks' blog: Value of citizen journalism he also expands very interestingly on how media outlets are coping man-power-wise on the influx of UGC, which I've touched on in previous blogs, gives other examples of UGC and discusses them, talks about representation, and arguments for and against the BBC's approach...

I may do another blog on a few other things he says...but for now, take a read, it's really interesting.

Radio - we appear to have omitted the transmitted!

This is my final one for today - I promise!!

I've just been talking with my very informed parents and they've commented on a part of citizen journalism that I haven't really touched on yet...

Radio!

In particular, local radio. On many different local radio stations across the UK there are often 'chat-shows' where people can ring up and 'have their say'.

As my parents have just said, more and more people are becoming less intimidated to ring up radio stations. Also, slightly quashing my idea about 18-24 year-olds arguably being the main contributors to citizen journalism, people from the older generation, pensioners for example are constantly ringing up and chatting on the radio. Young people DO do this too! So my argument still stands...honestly!

On one hand it could be considered that by opening the radiowave floodgates to the audience it's merely a platform for personalised rant - a little like my idea of mutual off-loading and group therapy.

A lot of people, in some opinions, are contacting the media with news that's not necessarily news-worthy in a global sense, but is important specifically to them. If an editor of a news programme were to have all these things come up in front of them, he/she may not necessarily put them on air as they are not part of the news agenda of the day. Instead, with the media inviting comment from people the more localised problems are aired and discussed on air outside the news bulletins.

This is a good thing. On the other hand however, it could be considered local radio has become a similar thing to a town crier...! It means that people get their voice heard in a public sphere and enables subjects to be discussed and examined that wouldn't necessarily get air time any other way.

It's also more immediate than writing a letter, as people used to have to do.

So even though Mrs. Blogg's knickers being stolen from a washing line (this case actually happened in the Shetlands by the way, and reported on the back page of the Shetland Times in the 70s (although I have changed names!)) may not be the type of thing you'd hear Hugh on the 6 o'clock talking about, it's a local story, which local people will want discussed. Similarly, personal gripes with the recycling men, or the local police etc. etc. is important to a number of people to listen to, absorb and participate in the dialogue.

Local radio has opened up the one-way news process to a multi-faceted dialogue. If this vehicle for expression was taken away - I think people would be more than a little miffed...I don't know - have your say..!

Do I dare believe my eyes?

Gosh, this has been a productive day! For those wondering why I've made so many blogs today - I've been wanting to blog for ages but alas time, frustratingly, has been against me, and illness has hampered my general ummm well life over the past week or so. I am still ill I hasten to add, but a day at home on the Internet has been handed to me today as part of my recovery before a long and busy week ahead doing TV work experience...yey!

A conversation that I had today coincided with something that cropped up in the Falmouth International Journalist MA contingents' presentation last week.

The concept was that through digital technology, tonnes of people are able to access news and media outlets easily and frequently. This means that user-generated content and contribution to the news is facilitated and used prolifically. Now, this also means, as the IJs pointed out, that people have taken the opportunity to take photographs or footage of an event, 'enhance' it through computer programmes such as Photoshop or the like and consequently have given the media tampered, unreliable 'evidence' of the event. Again, as the IJs argued, this makes it difficult for media organisations to decipher what is real and what is not, and sometimes falsified things slip through.

Take the Lebanon photos debate (see The Telegraph Blog for more details). Basically, a freelance photographer took these photos, doctored them to make the smoke look more, I don't know...bellowy and worse than it actually was, submitted them to Reuters and the media organisation used them...oblivious, at that moment in time, that the photographer had given the truth 'scope'.

Similarly, with these photos, the same photographer had apparently cloned the flares to make it seem like there were three being dropped.

This, if you read the blog from the Telegraph, was just one of the problems of inaccuracy and ambiguity about these photos.

I'm going down my route that I've taken many times now, is this such a new phenomenon? Well, no! Although the temptation of doctoring photographs (for example) is arguably more tempting now, and facilitated by people being more familiar and competent with computer technology and photo manipulation, this has been going on for years...

Fairies...really? At the bottom of the garden...? Well, it got some people going!

Two young girls, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, were cousins. They took two photographs in 1917. It was to try and convince their parents that they'd genuinely been playing with fairies in the garden...as you do!

A local expert in photography was shown the pictures and said, in his opinion, they were real. Once they had received approval, the fairy images flew (harhar!) into upper class British society and circulated, well like a meandering fairy..!

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, then caught wind of them. Doyle was a passionate believer in spiritualism, and he latched onto the images, convinced that they were conclusive photographic proof of the existence of supernatural fairy beings.

He made this argument public in an article he wrote for Strand magazine in 1920. When the girls provided him with three more fairy photographs, he wrote a second article. Doyle’s passionate belief in the authenticity of the fairy photos helped to make the two girls famous, and it sparked a national controversy that pitted spiritualists against skeptics. The photos were, of course subject to double exposure - cunning.

What's really funny about this doctoring-lark though, is that even the BBC have done it! Now, surely they're one of the ones who are meant to be setting an example in broadcasting standards, and, if they are culpable of 'giving the truth scope' then how are people meant to know right from wrong?

Well, this may be a bit deep to be fair regarding the BBC's spoof, because that's what it was; a spoof...and even the BBC's is allowed to have a little fun every now and then. You may remember though - this got people going too in 1957 .

Spaghetti...trees...really?!!

The BBC fooled the nation on April Fools' Day. They received mixed reactions to the spoof documentary posing as a Panorama investigation about spaghetti crops in Switzerland. The programme was narrated by distinguished broadcaster Richard Dimbleby and featured a family from Ticino in Switzerland performing their annual spaghetti harvest showing women picking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them out in the sun to dry.

Some viewers failed to see the funny side of the broadcast and criticised the BBC for airing the item on what is supposed to be a serious factual programme. Others, however, were so intrigued they wanted to find out where they could purchase their very own spaghetti bush.

Last example for now - but just don't get me started on these...

What this demonstrates though, is that doctoring photographs long precedes Photoshop and the like. It doesn't mean it's right. It does mean it's clever. Unlike the BBC and the fairy phenomenon however, the photos that are being disseminated into the news medium nowadays are not necessarily so innocuous. It's a constant danger for broadcasters that images like the ones from Lebanon could seep through into mainstream transmission. It is our job to sought out the wheat from the chaff, but it arguably becomes more difficult when there are millions of citizen journalists on the ground where professional journalists cannot be all the time.

On a roll today!! Law - what is it good for?!!

Referring to Sophie's blog - have a look at this:

http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/08/17/321233.aspx

I spotted this before Christmas actually, whilst watching a little CNN. Up until now I haven't had the time to properly sit down and find the example I wanted. But check this guy out on the MSNBC - he's called Jimmy Justice, he's a video vigilante...journalist...

This is the video link:
http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&brand=msnbc&fg=&vid=a4f8d112-0bb7-4004-a37f-820ad8472ef8&from=00

Think while you're watching this video about the law and regulations, ethics, 15-minutes of fame theory and various things we've discussed on this blog...it may make you chuckle.

I reiterate - is this newsworthy? Is this journalism? Is this necessary? So many arguments for and against!!

Oh and for more Jimmy action - go here

Brilliant!

Who can we trust - Trust No One..?

In a poll performed by the BBC, Reuters, Media Centre and Globespan in March and April 2006, findings show generally more people across the globe trust the media more than their own Government*. This is by an average of 61% trusting the media, to 52% trusting the governments across the countries polled. A majority of people also believe the seemingly 'untrusted' Government has too much of an influence on the media:

"Two in three people believe news is reported accurately (65%), but more than half (57%) believe governments interfere too much with the media and only 42% think journalists can report freely. People are divided on whether the media covers all sides of a story, with 41% disagreeing."

(To read this in full please go to: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/02_05_06mediatrust.pdf)

Out of interest though - here's the chart of the poll's findings:

In the US and UK the poll found more people trusted their Government than the media. Across the globe one in four (28%) reported abandoning a news source over the last year after losing trust in its content. Three out of four people (77%) prefer to check several news sources instead of relying on just one, especially Internet users.

What is interesting about this is that if people are distrusting the media, and especially abandoning news sources for lack of trust, perhaps the uninitiated public are participating more in the process of news gathering because they trust themselves more than the initiated 'other' (initiated journalists).

Perhaps they feel they can produce the news in a more fair and accurate manner, in their opinion. They get to have their say and therefore, their comment/input on newsworthy events.

Using the end date of this poll as 2006, it reveals that trust in media has increased overall since 2002 - in Britain up from 29% to 47% and in the US from 52% to 59%. Hypothetically, if we say that citizen journalism, or certainly user-generated content really started becoming a major contributor to news-gathering in 2001 with the attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11th, I think we can argue media coverage has become more trusted since increased audience participation.

Consequently, I will put to you my argument. The viewer/listener now trusts the media more because they are involved in it and feel media organisations are now less 'the other' and more 'us'.

Media outlets include a considerably larger amount of user-generated content than ever before. Perhaps there's a feeling among audiences, if you can't beat'em, join'em...?

Well, they have joined.

According to the Media Centre poll:

Two in three (67%) of those polled in the 18-24 age range follow the news closely every day.

Those most likely to have stopped using a news source because of a breach of trust, with 13% strongly agreeing they have done so in the past year, are more likely to be urban males, aged 18-24.

Further analysis of the findings suggests this young male audience is moving away from television towards the Internet – ten percent fewer of them, compared to the average, name television as their most important news source (46% as opposed to 56% overall); and 15% say the Internet is now their most important news source in an average week, compared to just 9% of respondents as a whole.

Who in particular, in your mind, do you think are the most technologically savvy? 18 to 24 year-olds perhaps? I would argue yes, in some respects.

Now I'll be honest with you, I have trawled through a number of polls to find out who, statistically, makes up the citizen journalist demographic, and evidently, no one has made this poll yet...annoyingly. I would argue though that logically it would be people who are working/out-and-about, who commute/travel around a lot, have video/picture enabled mobile phones/digital cameras, know how to use this technology, use YouTube...

(Just as an aside - personally I'd increase the upper age limit of 24 to around about mid-to-late fifties**. So, I estimate the prolific citizen journalist will be covered age-wise by 18-55 (ish). But that's just my opinion - I happen to know many fifties folks who wander around with a camera in their pockets 24/7!)

Now, if these are the citizen journalists, and they also cover the people who have wavering trust in the media, could it not be construed that they may be trying to manipulate the media to their constructs in order to trust it more?

The poll reveals clear winners and losers among the differing news mediums. The Internet appears to be winning. It says:

"National TV is still the most trusted news source by a wide margin, although the Internet is gaining ground among the young. The jury is still out on ‘blogs’ – just as many people distrust them as trust them."

And...who do you think are the main users of the Internet and online media? Who are the main people uploading their footage with ease and quantity?

The 18-24 year old global demographic are the ones watching the news the most and are (ostensibly) the most technologically savvy, is this why we're seeing so much more user-generated content?

These questions are rhetorical for the moment until I can find some stats to (hopefully) back me up. It certainly does give you something to chew over though - so have fun!

*Please do note at this point, the background to this poll is as follows; a total of 10,230 adults were questioned by GlobeSpan in the UK, USA, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, and South Korea in March and April. The figures are therefore, a combination of developing countries, leading global powers and all things in between. Please consider when viewing these figures the political structures within all these different countries are not the same, and hence I will be mainly exploring my theory within the UK.

**From personal experience, a number of people I know between the ages of about 25 to mid-to-late 40s, don't watch the news avidly. Sad, but true. In the event of a disaster, they may however, be the first to grab their new-fandangled, most up-to-date mega-mobile phone/camera and capture the event - think of the age range of the commuters in the 7/7 bombings. Hence I am still including them in the citizen journalist demographic.

You pay peanuts - you get monkeys

Right, leading on from my last blog, I thought I'd make a new one as I just like the fact I get to publish one of my favourite sayings on the Internet!

It's an ambiguous one in this context I admit. Who's paying the peanuts, who are the monkeys? Well, it's a three fold thing.

1)
Journalism for one is not a profession. In many circumstances, journalism is not well paid. In a fair few people's minds, any one can do it. Monkey number 1.

Proof - Take a paragraph from good ol' McNae's Essential Law for Journalists. It notes that, "...journalists have no such special position and in fact do nothing more than professionally exercise one of the fundamental rights of citizenship: freedom of expression."

Well, we can all do that, can't we?!

2)
Some opinions think you do have to have talent, intelligence and professionalism to be a journalist (this I stress, is not a monkey). Not everyone can do it - but a lot of people want to. There's a massive demand for jobs over and above the amount of people to fill them. We've found some peanuts.

Where there are more peanuts though is that with the vast proportion of user-generated content; it's unpaid. Arguably, the only gratification is getting to see your image/your comment/your video on major television networks for example.

So does this mean media outlets are getting thousands of monkeys? Is the gratification part of the 'Big-Brother' (as in Channel 4 programme), 15-minutes of fame for "doing-nothing-but-existing" psyche which we all happen to be participating in nowadays?

In the case of the London Bombings, despite the day being a major breakthrough for citizen media, from Wikipedia's collective entry to group blogs such as Londonist's hour-by-hour rundown for example, it also brought out the worst in some onlookers (untrained journo-monkeys?)

A blogger from London, who only identifies himself as 'Justin' told his survival story when the bomb exploded on the train near Edgware Road.

His account has now unfortunately expired on the Internet. I have taken excerpts from an interesting article which you can read here written by Mark Glaser, an American journalist.

It includes this scene as he emerges from the underground tunnel:

""The victims were being triaged at the station entrance by Tube staff and as I could see little more I could do so I got out of the way and left," he wrote. "As I stepped out people with cameraphones vied to try and take pictures of the worst victims. In crisis some people are cruel...These people were passers-by trying to look into the station...They had no access, but could have done well to clear the area rather than clog it...The other direction wasn't so pretty, but you don't need an account of this and what I saw, watching TV is enough." "

Mark Glaser left a comment for Justin on his blog, asking him if, "he realised that all the people with cameraphones that day were helping to tell the story to the world. Was there a way they could tell that story in a more sensitive way?"

The response from Justin: "The news does hold a role and it's important for people to understand, comprehend and learn...but you must appreciate something else -- were those people taking photos helping or were those people shocking the world? I've alluded to seeing [gruesome] things in the tunnel and carriage, but I've not documented them in any detail. I feel it is inappropriate and does not contribute to fact and information."

Harrowing images from the attacks at this point in time have not been used online or prominently in the Western media according to Mark Glaser. He says, this contrasts sharply with the response in the Spanish media after the Madrid train bombings on March 11, 2004, when bloody photos were on TV and in newspapers, according to a Reuters story.

As a consequence of new media absorbing user-generated content, everyone can now 'have a go' at being a journalist. As Mark Glaser, and Justin from London argue, some of the footage from a disaster like the London bombings was taken to shock. Were they taken as shocking images to get the captors noticed? Are citizen journalists thinking like the controversial artists such as Tracy Yemen and Damian Hurst? Is this type of user-generated footage really newsworthy?

3)
If anyone can do it, and the news outlets are not paying them to do it necessarily, I suggest, in certain cases, citizen journalists are news-gatherers missing the regulations and ethical guidelines a trained journalist may have, and are just looking for that one shot to get them noticed. Citizen paps, voyeuristic intentions and unethical input is all being fed into news organisations. Whether it's used or not is another matter, but journalists are having to sift through all the content. Should citizen journalists be paid? Would it make the situation better or worse to provide a financial incentive? To read more about this idea, go to http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/51686.php to view a good debate on whether citizen journalists should be paid or not.

But for now, how is this affecting traditional broadcasting techniques? Media outlets pay peanuts, and they're getting monkeys...some are good, some are not.

More choice/more voice? An editor's nightmare?

The advent of technological advancement has led to the intensified and dramatic fragmentation of the mass media. In other words the more technology advances, the more choice we have as a participant – choosing exactly what we want to ingest.

This ultimately makes the listener/viewer a customer – and importantly making the onlooker a contributor.

If you like a certain brand or a certain organisation, arguably you are more likely to have an affinity with it and therefore, you will use it again. This can extend from your favourite washing powder right through to your favourite news medium, i.e. if you like to mull over what you're ingesting in the news and take it at your own pace, you may prefer to read the news in a newspaper, or online.

As such, I think it's fair to say that users generally wish to contribute to such organisations they have this affinity with. The interactive nature that news has now acquired, i.e. the 'Have your say' parts of the BBC website, provides a large incentive for people to contribute. Remember at this point in time, the viewer/reader of the news has ostensibly become a customer. If a customer of news does not want to experience information being transmitted in a one-way manner, namely, watching someone tell you what's going on in the world through a 14" by 9" screen (or 5ft by 5ft plazma as it seems now!) with no vehicle to respond, they don't have to.

As with the BBC, the more forward looking organisations have invested in and experimented with their online news products including blogs. As my learned colleague discovered; Guardian Unlimited now records 10 million users ever month, compared to a print circulation of 360,000.

It could be considered therefore, commercial suicide for any news organisation to dismiss the potential of an online audience. Does this mean then the audience have become more powerful than the editor/news organisation?

Through new technology, new trends and cultures are continuously bred which have come to defy the usual order of things in print and broadcast journalism. I think you could definitely say there’s an increasing trend of people grabbing their cameras and becoming generators and captors of news. And this 'anthropology' is being encouraged.

But, is encouragement such a good thing?

In the aftermath of the July 7th bombings in London, mobile phones, blogs etc. allowed citizens to share their experiences, not just on personal websites but on major television and media websites which prominently used these images.

Though citizen participation in mainstream media offers many advantages, it also entails risks, such as the verification of authenticity and invasion of privacy by ‘citizen paparazzi’. Also, could this not be possibly considered as merely a forum for mutual off-loading or group therapy?

Is it a healthy thing that absolutely anyone can access the news agenda and make it their own? Obviously, the user-generated information flooding into news organisations is still being governed by the editor, at the moment at least.

What is important to one person however, is not necessarily as important to someone else. At the end of the day, the viewer has become much more a customer of the news. This puts more pressure on the job of the editor to ensure that his/her programme is catering to the needs of their audience.

As the audience is now one of the links in the chain of news gathering, if an editor decides not to go down the route that the customers wish, because he/she's adhering to traditional broadcasting techniques for example, could he not upset his customer?

It must be considered at this point that citizens do not necessarily have an in-depth comprehension of traditional broadcasting rules, regulations and techniques. As a result, we're looking at the battle between the initiated and the uninitiated. What the initiated news broadcaster may not include in a programme for reasons of taste/decency, or by law he/she's prohibited; an uninitiated citizen journalist may not realise and/or "realise" these reasons.

With the 'commoditising' of news however, the constant feed of user-generated content, linking the user with the production of the news, therefore makes the user tangibly integrated into said production of the news, could this be making the job of bone fide journalists more difficult?

Now, I'm playing Devil's Advocate here, but think about this. Arguably, news editors and journalists must now consider not just informing the people what's going on fairly, accurately and in a balanced and contemporaneous manner, and deciding what to inform the audience, what they're interested in most/least , but now, more weight could be given to how the audiences' contribution will be used in a pleasing manner to the user/generators.

If they offend their audience, the oh-so-fickle thing that it is, viewers/readers now have so many choices as to where they get their news/information, they'll skip to another channel in a blink of an eye.

So, yes, more choice means more voice for the audience, they can say what they want to say in response to the news. They can contribute in a plethora of ways what they want to say/portray/show/share. The question is, with the increasing power of the customer in the world, is the emancipation of the user-voice, reining in that of the journalist?

I'd like to continue this idea in my next blog, so please do read on...!

Continuing along the idea of citizen journalism and law...

The idea that citizen journalists are out of the legal/ethical structures imposed upon the rest of the media is one that France has already addressed in part.

On 3rd March, the Prevention of Criminality Law (http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=21237) was passed. Nicolas Sarkozy said the law was aimed at so called 'happy slappers' who film acts of violence. The law provides for sentences up to FIVE YEARS and fines of up to £50,000 for publishing for anyone caught breaking acts mentioned in the law - one of which includes violence "committed by an agent of the state in the exercise of his duties".


If this isnt a hamper to Citizen journalists and a direct attempt to keep them under control then i dont know what is and it could potentially result in a world wide blanket ban on such examples of Citizen journalism but does it then take away the right to freedom of expression? and is it even possible to impose such a law in practice??

If the toulouse riot is anythying to go by, no. policing the citizen journalists would require almost double the number of police...hours after the riots - despite the law - videos and photos began to appear on the net.

However, implemented or not, this law introduces a clear distinction between 'professional' journalists, allowed to show images of violence and ordinary 'citizen' journalists who can be jailed for the same thing

SOPHIE

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Legal minefield

Whilst citizen journalism can enhance journalism as a whole, there are several concerns that should be taken into account...with 7/7 CJ proved to be a massive asset (at least to journalists) in that it gave us pictures to descibe exactly what happened but come the arrests on 21/7 all the mainstream news organisations were observing a news blackout implemented by police; citizen journalists however were very much out of that structure and hence could potentially threaten national secrurity by interferring with anti-terrorist operations. This links up with grey areas regarding legal technicalities that wont always be observed by citizen journalists....there is a very real risk that national security and the judicial process may be undermimed. - sophie

Citizen Journalism: A help, a hindrance....or a headache?

A discussion with a journalist revealed an interesting angle for our search to decide if citizen journalists are a help or a hindrance. It could be argued that pictures or videos sent in by a citizen journalist are always going to be helpful to a journalist in one way or another. But with the material a journalist, or someone, would have to sift through in order to choose something suitable it may cause a headache!

Think about it…the amount of footage that was used in the BBC coverage of the 7/7 London bomb attacks. The videos taken by citizen journalists would have been just a handful of the many that had been sent in. Someone had to judge them In terms of journalistic content. Someone had to check the quality of the videos. Many of the videos would have been taken by people with low quality footage on older camera phones. Footage that is badly distorted wouldn’t be suitable for broadcast on a television program.

Furthermore, someone would need to make sure the footage is in fact suitable for broadcast. An example of this would be the hanging of Saddam Husain. The footage shown on the TV was different to that shown on YouTube On TV you wouldn’t see him actually being hung, while citizen journalists in Iraq filmed his hanging in full. So if you desired you could search for it.

Another example would be back at the 7/7 attacks. Some footage would be deemed too gory for broadcast…no one would want to see bits of a blown up body while they’re eating their dinner in front of the 6 o clock news. So again a person, a journalist, has to choose what will actually end up on the television.

Essentially it comes down to this. Citizen Journalists are helpful to regular journalists, but when they are filming things…disasters…they won’t be thinking about ‘taste and decency’ and what will be suitable for broadcast. A journalist on the other hand knows what can and cannot be shown. So, a citizen journalist’s footage is useful…when it is suitable for broadcast. But it does cause the journalist a headache when they have to go through every single but of footage they are sent in to judge if it can be used….or not.

Citizen journalism can not take our jobs. Simple.

A survey of members of the public revealed some interesting points...most agreed that in a crisis, they would rise to the role of citizen journalist and capture the footage in whatever form. In regard to pay, opinions were mixed - some were decidedly against and others were adament that they should profit from the service they provide the press. What they did all agree on was that citizen journalism could never take over from qualified journalists because, in the words of one, "there is always a need for professional"....this is comforting news and it makes sense.
When people talk about how citizen journalism is taking over our jobs they are not really thinking straight. Imagine a world where there were no journalists, only citizen journalists; It just wouldnt work....to exist, citizen journalism in dependent on the structure provided by journalists.
If we look at it like this then, citizen journalism can only be an asset to the industry....a means of developing and enhancing a package/article that abides by the strict codes of conduct impressed upon journalists. It could never put a journalist out of a job because a journalist is needed to put their work in context. (one has to consider legal and ethical frameworks etc)
Where this becomes undermimed slightly of course is on the internet but I shall look at that in more depth later on before this blog becomes so long winded as to boor you senseless.
I shall leave you with this thought...as broadcast journalists would we not relish the opportunity to incorporate actual footage of the event we are covering as it happened if we were unable to get hold of it ourselves - be it audio, photos or video? I certainly wouldnt knock a gift horse in the mouth.....

Compare if you will examples of what I am trying to say....below are the ITV and BBC reports on the day of the London Bombings. BBC uses CJ within its piece. ITV does not. Which do you think is the better report?

SOPHIE

Citizen Journos = 21st Century Pamphleteers?

I'm going to briefly stick with the historical look at citizen journalism. Linking with my previous blog about Albert Kahn, and Danny's comment about portraits and art, our brains started boggling about where else could citizen journalism crop up in history?

I find this a fascinating way to look at events which have happened in the past as, to be frank, I've never considered primary sources (outside of the published newspapers etc.) in this context before, and, I realise I may be alone in thinking this way (!) it's become a little bit like a magic eye picture; you put a slight slant on it, look in a different way and a whole plethora of ideas get revealed...

I agree with Sophie's argument that it is easy to take the idea that any historical documentation could be held up as citizen journalism if you massage the document in a certain manner which makes it fit, but we must not. It is very fitting however, I think, to at least mention another thing in the historical context of public involvement in news; pamphlets!

Obviously, pamphlets are a wide and varied subject in themselves, but imagine, if you will, the world before the internet, before mobiles and facebook (hard, I know) how did people communicate? Word of mouth...newspapers...letters...telegrams...yes. But how did they get their say? Pamphlets?

Nowadays if we had a problem with something, or wanted to complain, we can send an email to 'whom it may concern' or we can write on the 'Have Your Say' part of the BBC website, text television/radio news, even get our own footage from our perspective 'on the ground' aired on National TV if we wanted. What about in the past?

Pamphlets have long been an important tool of political protest and campaigning. Like with a text message or a quick phone call, pamphlets were cheap and easily proliferated to the public. They were operating outside of newspapers and books and were used to broadcast the writer's opinions on an issue, for instance articulating a particular political/social idea.

We, the Three Journos, and anyone else who has a blog are effectively being 21st century pamphleteers. Back in the times of Thomas Paine however, in the American Revolutionary War for example, telecommunications did not exist as they do now.

Where the 21st century pamphleteer has a really rather large advantage is that internet connections, blogging, emails and user-generated commentary on websites come at relatively low cost and easy accessibility to our fingertips (taking the sometimes extortionate line-rental and internet fees out of the equation for the moment). One had to have access to a printing press and a supply of paper before becoming a pamphleteer in times past, which was not quite so accessible.

I think that the comparison is fair however, between those who have access to the internet who blog and those who had access to a printing press who produced pamphlets; we all, at the end of the day, are publishing and broadcasting our missives...

Citizen Journalism - Has it always been ingrained in us?

It was while watching the BBC2 programme 'The Great War in Colour: the Wonderful World of Albert Kahn' earlier this evening it occurred to me that ostensibly citizen journalism has been going on much longer than we currently imagine, but potentially under a different guise...

This programme looked at the really rather beautiful and poignant collection of colour photographs from Albert Kahn's 'The Archive of the Planet'.

Albert Kahn was a millionaire Parisian banker in the first half of the twentieth century. Between 1908 and 1930, Kahn used his fortune to create what is widely acknowledged to be the most important collection of early photographs in the world.

Using the French autochrome system, which had only been marketed since 1907 by its inventors Auguste and Louis Lumière, Kahn embarked upon his mission to effectively to document the world. He hired photographers and dispatched them to more than 50 countries worldwide. They shot more than 72,000 colour pictures and around 100 hours of film.

But what got my journalistic synapses sparking was what they were recording.

They captured everything from religious rituals and cultural practices to momentous political events all over the world. They took the earliest known colour pictures in countries as far apart as Vietnam and Brazil, Mongolia and Norway, Japan and Benin.

Often, they arrived in these countries at crucial moments in their history. They recorded the collapse of both the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires for example, and the advent of new states in Europe and the Middle East. During World War I, Kahn's photographers captured the lives of soldiers behind the front lines at The Battle of Verdun, and they also watched the world's most powerful men when they convened for the post-war negotiations at Versailles.

Journalism? I think so.

If you take Lord Donaldson's famous quote, "The media are the eyes and ears of the general public" and now consider Albert Kahn's collection. By capturing and preserving the images of behind the front lines at Verdun for example, Kahn's team of photographers informed the public (then and now) and helped to reveal the 'real' story of 'real' people and the very real situation.

Albert Kahn was an idealist, but also an internationalist. One of his aims for his soon-to-be vast collection of philanthropic photographs was to be able to create a greater understanding among the world's cultures. (Donaldson would be so proud!)

I argue that even when technology like mobile phone cameras, digital cameras or video cameras were a mere microchip in a rather 'H.G. Wells-ian' eye, citizen journalism was here all the time.

Kahn used his collection to inform people, and his material reveals so much in pictures that our concept of the first world war for example could be greatly hindered if we did not have this evidence.

Arguably no, the pictures were not emblazoned in the newspapers for example, but they were displayed and proliferated in the manner of Kahn's notion of creating a better understanding within different cultures. Remembering that a publication simply means something that is communicated to a third party in some form, in my opinion Kahn was publishing and therefore, without realising it, he and his team of photographers were, in our terms; citizen journalists.

Now, being the subject of a BBC documentary, the pictures and historical analysis are being broadcast. I watched this programme and it informed me of a whole different side of World War 1 for example. It delved into and explained details which were encapsulated and revealed through Kahn's photographs.

Would it not be appropriate to compare this to the 'at the front line', foreign correspondent reporting what we now see in Iraq, Afghanistan or in previous wars?

I will leave you to decide.

By Natalie

Some thoughts on Citizen Journalism...

So, when did Citizen Journalism take off as a phenomenon? Personally, the first event I associate Citizen Journalism with is 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre. Shaky videos taken by people who just happened to in the area when first attack occurred were used on a number of major news networks. Who could forget the images of the first plane crashing into the North Tower?

If we count this as the first example of citizen journalism in the Multimedia age, what has come since? The reports of another terrorist attack, the July 7^th London bombings, used large amounts of footage taken by people who had been inside the trains, or spoke to them on the phone, in their coverage of the event. Footage of the Indian Ocean Tsunami hitting the shore on December 26^th 2004, again involved a lot of footage from citizens. On a smaller scale, last Novembers East London warehouse fire news involved citizen journalists. Many news outlets, both Television and Print, used videos and photos taken by members of the public. For example, the above photo was used by the Daily Telegraph and was taken by one of its readers.

Arguably, the involvement of citizens as journalists in ‘disaster’ situations as described above is helpful to journalists to an extent. People in the area when such an event happens have the ability to record videos or take photos as soon as it happens. A journalist on the other hand has to be told an event is happening and get to it before they can report on it. Therefore, the fact that citizens are sending images and videos into News Channels is helpful to journalists. Especially to those at rolling 24 hour news channels which need to have images and videos on screen as soon as possible.

But is this all good? What if citizen journalists were to try and get involved in other areas of reporting the news? It would not be convenient to be beaten by a member of the public to a hospital after a story has broken there, or being behind a citizen in the pecking order when interviewing a headmaster at a failing school…. These concepts may seem farfetched now but who would have thought people would have their pictures in the news regularly ten years ago?

The Hindrances of citizen journalism to full time journalists needs to be explored further, and will be over the coming weeks...