Delicate Genius Blog

Mark Jones recently posted some thoughts on the “citizen journalism” efforts of the major television networks.

His concussion on the current situation goes something like this:

The obvious conclusion to draw is that the commercial stations can see a financial benefit from involving citizens in the reporting cycle. They’re also not afraid to tell you that your content will be exploited for commercial gain with little credit given to you for your work. And so you’d have to ask why you’d bother, right?

Coincidently enough, a little while ago, Mark posted a link to an article spelling the demise of “amateur” podcasters at the hand of the big radio networks.

I feel the same on this issue as I do on the podcasting one. The tides are shifting; people are more than ever empowered by technology and more specifically the Internet. Blogs, podcasting, online forums etc all provide real channels for so-called “citizens”.

The value in these citizen channels is that there is currently very little commercial or governmental interest or influence and that the total chain of delivery is citizen owned. Anything and everything can be said and heard.

Television (and radio) networks have a totally different mindset. They are beholden to advertisers and the bottom line. They can often be very conflicting interests.

In order for citizen media to pass a commercial journalism it needs to behave as a commercial journalist and hence lose its citizen credibility. So, you cannot be both at the same time.

This is not a bad thing, it just is. Accept them both for what they are.

So, like McDonalds selling “health food”, it’s a great gimmick and could very well improve the bottom line – all the power to them.

My only problem is this. Gimmicks like this are likely to dilute the fact that REAL citizen journalism exists outside of polished citizen input into the commercial system.

-dg