Mainstream journalism as we have known it for the better part of the 20th century is headed for remarkable changes that are blurring distinctions between professionals and non-professionals.
The trends are here and already visible. Ordinary citizens anywhere, with a cell phone, a Skype telephone connection, a digital camera and computer e-mail access to broadband and satellite communications equipment can rapidly transfer text, photos and video footage from hot spots around the world directly to an online editing desk where they are posted within minutes on a Internet news site.
Theoretically, anyone and everybody can be a journalist. If they are at the scene of the event or able to rush to it as it happens they must simply record the details, interview the bystanders and flash the text and images to the editorial desk, which can be dozens, hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away.
The citizen journalist is most likely to be the journalist of the future; he or she will replace the traditional staff reporter with a regular domestic beat or the correspondent appointed to a foreign capital on a “temporary basis” for one or more years. As a local national he or she will be the person-on-the-spot, reporting from the war zone in Iraq or Sudan or in the Palestinian territories.
The citizen journalist will also become the “front-door (special) correspondent” dispatched by his or her distant Web site editor to the backyard of an earthquake of flood disaster scene in their hometown, whether it be in Louisiana or in Slovenia or in Indonesia. He may also routinely replace the gaggle of senior reporters trailing a visiting president, prime minister or foreign and defense minister on a whirlwind tour to China and the Great Wall, to befriend truant Latin American countries, to placate Asian sensitivities or to appease European sensibilities.
Being the local person at the “hot spot” her Web site editor will not have to reimburse her for hefty travel and accommodation expenses and that will boost her appeal.
Those in the under 30 age group for the most part eschew newspapers and find television news boring. Spiraling costs and falling sales are already forcing mainstream media barons to downsize permanent staffs and increasingly fall back on look-alike reports syndicated by Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Presse. As citizen journalism trends crystallize, the salaried staff reporter and foreign correspondent too may recede into history.
The technological vistas fueling global journalism provided an awesome backdrop to a stimulating three-day conference organized by OhmyNews in Seoul last week at which I was an Israeli participant. The forum offered a cross-cultural platform for panelists representing Internet media specialists and Web site news operators to share and discuss their experiences with contributing journalists from South Korea, Afghanistan, India, Cameroon, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil, Australia, South Africa, Poland, Russia, the Ukraine, Estonia, the United States and Canada.
Web site operators dwelt on the cultural difficulties encountered by their venture experience in their home countries. Rostislav Vylegzhanin, co-founder and editor of Realno.info, for example, recounted veiled threats to the freedom of expression his site encounters from government harassment and self-censorship in his native Russia. Michael Tippett, co-founder of the Canadian NowPublic Web site combining camera phone photographs and breaking news events, spoke of the superior advantage citizen journalists have over mainstream journalists by simply being at the scene of distant events when they happen in real time.
“Mainstream journalism and citizen journalism can and should collaborate and complement each other,” said Tippett, who pointed out that with a citizen journalist you can have presence where mainstream media can’t arrive. Citizen journalism sites can spread a broad network and with their new technologies “re-engineer the supply of news.” NowPublic has 100,000 reporters in 300 cities around the world.
Competition and suspicion should not be the model of interaction — a widespread complaint echoed by start-up sites like the year-old Israeli site Scoop.co.il, whose chief editor Yossi Saidov said that Israeli mainstream media Yediot Aharonot, Haaretz and Maariv frequently steal their items without giving due credit.
Conference participants homed in on three key issues: how can the new media gain reputable and sustainable success? Can they remain non-profitable over time? Must they equip their “stringer” or “wrangler” reporters with the appropriate equipment and pay them a reasonable remuneration for their work?
Six years after the founding of OhmyNews, Oh Yeon-ho, CEO and founder, said that his agency was setting up a journalism school to train Korean citizen reporters to be professional, trustworthy and responsible participants capable of gathering information, writing it up and evaluating it. Month long courses will be given starting August at a minimal fee to groups of aspiring citizen journalists at several centers around Korea.
This was a logical development he said if OhmyNews wants to exercise influence, help solve problems and contribute to the welfare of Korean society.
OhmyNews has still not broken even and remains dependent for the bulk of its operational budget on outside sources of funding. Polish, Estonian, Russian and Australian site operators also reported a similar dependence and predicted an uncertain future unless they could generate income from the sale of customer services or by attracting on site advertising. All of them invariably balked at the idea of levying an entry fee to surf the site as inconsistent with a free society that grants unrestricted access to sources of information and opinion.
Site operators disclosed that they had a substantial reservoir of hundreds of reporters. “Crowd sourcing” though does not contribute to sustainable reliability, responsibility or credibility. Moreover, it is not surprising that the turnover is high and enthusiasm dwindles if a pittance is paid or none at all.
Reporters were naturally concerned with the issue of reasonable reward for work done. One by one they approached the microphone to voice their fears of unfair pay and an exploitative philosophy. Enthusiasm is OK at first, but it has its fast limits. Having to hold down a steady job will invariably conflict with the demands of freelance journalism.
Korean citizen journalist Han Na Young, who had been asked to cover the Virginia Tech shootings in the U.S., spent a day traveling from her home to the crime scene and then filing her report — in all it took 17 hours. She told me that the remuneration did not cover her expenses. But she had been honored to do the story. Would she do such an assignment if asked a second and third time? Yes, she responded. But no, if she were asked for a fifth time. You can’t live on enthusiasm.
Citizen journalism has a derogatory connotation in some circles. One speaker rightly suggested dispensing with the term and re-branding it. After all the differences between professional and citizen journalists are insignificant and the two often overlap. Professionals make a living from it. The citizen journalist, who is in effect an amateur or a non-professional, rarely does and must supplement his income with other sources.
The citizen journalist at the start of his career often displays an unfortunate naivety and the Web site operator with a buyer’s market a cynical streak of classical Marxist capitalism. They are on different sides of the news media service and must find common ground if they are to fill the vacuum left by over stretched mainstream news media. They will certainly not be the only Web sites entering the foray.
– Yehonathan Tommer
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