When I was at the American University panel last week, I found myself getting really angry at the fact that none of the other panelists wanted to make a distinction between blogging and citizen journalism.
One of my panel mates, Wendy Rieger, came down hard on citizen journalism. It took all my strength for me not to stand up and rudely interrupt her, given that many citizen journalists fulfill a vital need in their respective communities.
At the New Media Women Entrepreneurs Summit, I learned that many citizen journalists have founded publications (New Haven Independent, The Forum, New Castle NOW, etc.) because mainstream media does not adequately cover their communities. Citizens in these underrepresented communities have access to more mainstream stories but don’t even know who is running for city council. Frustrated, these civilians with an interest in writing and sharing information tell the untold stories.
Just because this noble citizen journalism it taking place on a “blog” doesn’t mean the blog is necessarily “OMG LOL”. In fact, many of these publications have a stringent editorial process and an editorial board that works almost full-time, usually supported by a salary that doesn’t even begin to compensate for the services they provide on behalf of their communities.
“Blogging is no longer a genre but a medium by which people can self-publish. One can publish news, opinion, fiction, whatever by blogging. Unfortunately, some people still think of blogging as unedited, unverified ranting. They don’t differentiate genre from medium,” writes Jennifer Deseo, editor-in-chief of The Silver Spring Penguin (@sspenguin). “It’s like saying the Wall St Journal, Vogue magazine and Dan Brown novels fall under the same genre because they use the same medium (paper).”
When I read stories from the New York Daily News about the sex life of the Miracle on the Hudson pilot and from CNN about how Jennifer Lopez was SUPPOSED to trip at the American Music Awards, I think: journalists get PAID for writing these meaningless, worthless stories?
Meanwhile, all over the country, citizen journalists (or bloggers, whatever you want to call them) are producing content for little to no monetary rewards and receiving nothing but criticism for it. Think about all the towns that are no longer served by newspapers and wonder about the ways that those people communicate with one another. Yes, a lot of bloggers suck, but no one reads those blogs anyway.
(Photo by rcade)
She is possibly just criticizing it because she is scared about the state of decreasing viewership in mainstream media. Since I agreed with your coworkers post on Too Shy To Stop about how the traditional media is paying for their sins of crappy content, I think that this is a continuation of that. I think the blogging, content-rich citizen journalists will have their day.