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 7th 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 26th 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...
2 comments:
Another problem that manifests itself leading on from what you have been saying about citizen journalists potentially hogging space in press packs for example, is the fact that so many people have got the bug for citizen journalism and consequently could be considered to be bunging up our 'news pipes' as it were. Regular journalists and people watching the wires etc. etc. in a working newsroom get flooded with the 'shaky' videos, the poor pictures and general fodda and remember they have to sift through all the 'junk' before they find that 'mobile masterpiece'. Could it not be argued that although having a constant feed of 'on the scene' footage is a good thing on one hand, does it not have the potential of clogging up the system - slowing the news down..maybe? Also, journalists are trained, as with cameramen and women to 'find the story/shot'. This is subjective - what looks good in one person's eyes may seem completely different in another. Herein lies the rub - with the ostensible growth in interest in citizen journalism and user generated content, do newsrooms run the risk of offending their audience by not using their footage...? I guess we'll see.
it is fair to say that, from a journalists prospective at least, it is only really in distaster situations that citizen journalism comes into its own but then is it really concious citizen journalism or just the fact that they were there and so took the photo/video? do they then become citizen journalists and continue to take images of newsworthiness....my guess is no - these people unwittingly caught in distasters/big events are merely fleeting citizen journalists and ence can pose no real threat to jounalism as they have no intention of taking it further! - sophie
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