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?"
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.
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.
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