Reportage Medialog

Citizen Journalism is becoming a buzz word particularly in the blogsphere. It has its pedigree in the more formal theories of “public/civic journalism” but the two terms have now become almost synonymous in public usage.

Steve Outing on Poynter has just posted a very good description of the different kinds of citizen journalist projects that are currently being undertaken. What is fascinating is the diversity of projects and the fact that many mainstream media organisations in the US are experimenting with either ad-on or stand alone citizen journalism projects.

Dan Gilmour, technology blogger and author of book We Media, has been one of the key promoters of these new ideas. His whole book is online and is worth looking at. Here is one key section from the introductory chapter:

In The Elements of Journalism, Kovach and Rosenstiel take a similar view: “This kind of high-tech interaction is a journalism that resembles conversation again, much like the original journalism occurring in the publick houses and coffeehouses four hundred years ago. Seen in this light, journalism’s function is not fundamentally changed by the digital age. The techniques may be different, but the underlying principles are the same.”

What is emerging is a new media ecosystem, where online communities discuss and extend the stories created by mainstream media. These communities also produce participatory journalism, grassroots reporting, annotative reporting, commentary and fact-checking, which the mainstream media feed upon, developing them as a pool of tips, sources and story ideas.

Scott Rosenberg, managing editor of Salon.com, explains, “Weblogs expand the media universe. They are a media life-form that is native to the Web, and they add something new to our mix, something valuable, something that couldn’t have existed before the Web.

Gilmour describes the key principles of citizen journalism as:

• My readers know more than I do.

• That is not a threat, but rather an opportunity.

• We can use this together to create something between a seminar and a conversation, educating all of us.

• Interactivity and communications technology in the form of email, weblogs, discussion boards, websites and more make it happen

It is interesting that smh.com is adding more regular blogs from various journalists. However only Margo Kingston’s webdiary could be considered an example of citizen journalism. Webdiary is in fact a pioneer of this kind of journalism and Margo has an incredible commitment to working directly with her readers - many not at all of her own political persuasion - to engender real participatory discussion.