Citizen Journalism

I think over the next number of hours we will see the largest movement of citizen journalism is the history of media. There will be, by my predictions, more pictures submitted by citizens and used by the major media, than by professional photojournalist. This hurricane, since it is almost a planned news event, will be an amazing model and case study for citizen journalism. Some of the questions we must look at are as follows:

1) Are the media using any discretion when purchasing the pictures? For example, if someone is putting themselves clearly in harms way are they still going to buy the pics?

2) Are they buying the pics at all or are they just letting people volunteer them up for free?

3) At what point does citizen journalism stop and journalism start? Will they, the nets, use text, video and photos from CJ's or are they just going to accept pics?

4) Can CJ coverage be used outside of tradgic events?

5) How do we prevent a national paparazzi or a citizen journalist mob mentality?

There are tons of other questions that must be asked and we must look at, but those are some of the ones we must look at right now. Citizen Journalism is something we, as the media (or I guess I am really just a media critic now), are going to have to deal with over the next number of years. We are going to have to find out how citizen's response to news and citizen's content can be meshed with our current media structure.

The public's information and thoughts are going to be used more and more as we go forward in this media explosion. Blogs, photos, video, first-hand accounts...all are going to have their place, but we have to figure out what that place is. The public is not held to the stringent standards in which the journalist is bound, so we must understand question 3. There must be a solid, clear dividing line between man-on-the-street content and the content of trained journalists.