There’s a fairly lengthy discussion about citizen journalism available over at the BBC’s Digital Planet. It’s entry-level stuff – if you’ve heard the phrases “filtering role” and “democratisation” you’ve heard most of it before, although Bill Thomson’s distinction between user generated content (UGC) and citizen journalism (CJ) is interesting: UGC has no commercial value; CJ does.
FirstPerson, an MSNBC.com project, looks like one of the best mainstream CJ projects I’ve ever seen, combining a number of imaginative requests for user generated content and backing them up with editorial support and filtering, user votes to “engender a sense of ownership and loyalty”, and exposure on TV, as MediaPost reports:
“In recent weeks, FirstPerson tied in with NBC Nightly News’ feature “Trading Places,” a series of reports on adult children caring for their aging parents. Viewers submitted more than 6,000 videos, stories, and photos to FirstPerson editors about dealing with the issue. “
And by the way:
“MSNBC.com isn’t the only news organization introducing reader-generated multimedia content.
“Last week, The New York Times initiated a similar feature for its “Weddings and Celebrations” page by inviting readers to submit videos on the newspaper’s Web site. The video of newly engaged couples will become part of the “How We Met” series, marking the first time the site has published user-generated video.
“Times staffers screen all video submissions. And like MSNBC.com, the paper also has a site that invites auto enthusiasts to post photos and personal stories about their collectible cars. Readers can rate each other’s autos and post comments at collectiblecars.nytimes.com.
“CNN.com has “I Report,” in which consumers can send their stories and video reports to the news organization. The Feb. 26 series of reports delivered weather-related video reports from regular folks around the country.”
Citizen Journalism site NowPublic has won a deal with Associated Press to supply content. PaidContent reports:
“Lou Ferrara, AP deputy ME for multimedia, said the contributions could range from eyewitness accounts to originally produced reports. At first, AP bureaus with will work NowPublic in certain areas to enhance regional news coverage wile the national desks might call on contributors during breaking news. This part sort of veers over the hype-meter edge: NowPublic will help AP cover virtual communities but it doesn’t seem to mean setting up a Second Life bureau—more along the lines of covering social “networks and contributed content sites.” NowPublic also will help AP extend its coverage of virtual communities, such as social networks and contributed content sites. AP rival Reuters is already involved in peer journalism projects. “
(See also press Release).
Meanwhile, Media Nation reports on a similar, more nefarious, move in broadcasting:
“A small television station in Santa Rosa, Calif., has eliminated most of its news staff and will replace its evening newscasts with contributions from citizen journalists. The station, KFTY-TV, is owned by Clear Channel. Thus, this has all the makings of a profit-driven fiasco — a perversion of the promise of citizen journalism.”
The station has ‘yet to decide’ whether CJs will be paid…
The following article appears in today’s Press Gazette, Sadly, since the demise of the /discuss webpage, this is the only place you’ll find it online:
Picture this: you write a story covering an issue on which there is a broad range of opinion – so broad that it would be impossible to summarise it effectively in one article alone. Let’s say: local transport problems. On the newspaper’s website, alongside your rather superficial analysis (quote, counter-quote, “only time will tell”) you place a ‘wiki’: a webpage that readers can not only contribute to, but also edit and change, so that one reader’s contribution is another reader’s subbing material.
Or how about this: you’re working on a story that involves reporters in Washington, London, and New York. Rather than relying on lengthy conference calls or an editor who has to read three separate articles and combine them into one, the journalists collaborate by editing a single webpage that all three have access to.
If recent discussions are anything to go by, these scenes could be part of newsroom life sooner than you think. A piece by American columnist Bambi Francisco last week argued that it was only a matter of time before more professional publishers and producers begin to experiment with using “wiki-styled ways of creating content” in the same way as they have picked up on blogs. This was picked up by Ross Mayfield, CEO of wiki company Socialtext who, guest-writing on the blog of The Telegraph’s Shane Richmond, wrote: “Unusually, it may be business people who bring wikis into the mainstream. That will prepare the ground for media experiments with wikis [and] I think it’s a safe bet that a British media company will try a wiki before the end of the year.”
A number of experiments with wikis have already shown its potential to both reach out to a readership – and to fall flat on its face. An example of the latter was the LA Times ‘wikitorial’ – an editorial piece on the Iraq war which the newspaper allowed readers to edit. After only a day the newspaper had to pull the feature due to readers flooding the site with inappropriate material.
On the positive side, however, was Wired’s experiment with the form late last year, when they allowed readers to whip an unedited article about (yes) wiki technology into shape. Over 300 users made edits, with one interviewing a Harvard expert, and another suggesting a contact – and when one user complained about some quotes from an interviewee, the original journalist, Ryan Singel, posted his interview notes so that users could pick a better one.
So can we look forward to a wiki utopia where our readers check our facts, spelling and grammar – and do our interviews to boot? Or will the wiki dream be killed off through the fear of cyber vandals treating our news websites as virgin walls for virtual graffiti?
A clue to the answer may come from the rapid adoption of blogs by newspapers and broadcasters, a move that has been fuelled in large part by economics: the appeal of free content to publishers has been strong, while at the same time the fear of losing audiences to an army of micro-publishing competitors is neatly addressed.
Like blogs, wikis offer cost-saving user generated content, instant reader community, and even – for those so desperate to trim staff that they are willing to risk ending up in court – volunteer subeditors.
Wikis are blogs 2.0: like blogs, they provide an arena for readers to critique and correct, to self-publish, and to form communities. But they are different in a key way: wikis are ‘articles by committee’. The range of voices editing each other results in an often conservative, fact-based piece of work that stands firmly on the fence. This is why the ‘wikitorial’ experiment failed – if you want outspoken opinion, don’t conduct a survey.
But like blogs, wikis will only flourish if as much time and care is invested in them as are invested in editing articles. Shane Richmond identifies two obstacles that could slow down their adoption: inaccuracy and vandalism. Both can be addressed if savvy editorial staff are assigned to monitor the page and step in – both to prevent legal issues, and to facilitate those much-sought-after A-List contributors.
For now, the wiki seems likely to become an in-house tool before it reaches the news websites. The Telegraph are already planning an internal wiki as a precursor to something for readers to get their teeth into. “Once we have a feel for the technology,” says Shane Richmond, “we will look into a public wiki, perhaps towards the end of the year.”
In the meantime expect a lot of half-hearted and misguided experiments, a lot of mistakes as a result, and a lot of pooh-poohing from those without the guts to try.
Links:
Why media will embrace wikis
LA Times ‘wikitorial’ gives editors red faces [http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1511810,00.html]
The Wiki That Edited Me
Veni. Vidi. Wiki.
Veni, Vidi, Wiki (published article)
Shane Richmond: What makes wikis work
Wiki Wild West
Change is inevitable
Following my previous post on the free xwiki service for creating wikis, I’ve discovered SocialText, a more commercial operation but which does offer a free ‘personal version’ as well. Worth exploring if you’re thinking of experimenting with ‘the new blog’ (TM).
UPDATE: Added to the list is Zoho’s wiki, part of a whole suite of free online office products. And you can add PBwiki to that, too.
[Keyword: journalism, online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging].
At yesterday’s Citizen Journalism conference Trinity Mirror Head of Multimedia Michael Hill spoke of this being the “garlic bread moment” for the local press – the realisation that new media and citizen journalism “is the future”.
At the same time “Local papers have been doing citizen journalism for over a hundred years – it’s always been about local people.” The battle now is to convince hearts and minds that local people want to consume – and take part in – their news in a different way. This is the “man on the Clapham Omnibus 2.0” who checks the news on their mobile phone, picks up a free newspaper but walks past the newsagent, searches for items of interest online, and relies on bloggers as much as journalists.
“We have to accept that breaking news online has to come first,” he said, a process he intimated some journalists were finding hard to swallow. One had protested: “Why kill the goose that laid the golden egg?” His response? “The goose has got bird flu”.
The process of persuasion has already begun, with ‘Back to Basics’ presentations to Trinity Mirror staff around the country. In the process the company has discovered latent talent in some staff – web savvy journalists; writers who can also edit video – but there is a conscious attempt not to “create islands” of ‘new media teams’ or ‘digital teams’. Hill described the process as being “like turning round an oil tank,” and that some staff would never get it, “but they’ll do what they’re told to do.”
The group have a number of plans for the future. Hill argues that “Local is Web 2.1,” and work is already under way on the first five of a planned 35 ‘micro-sites’ around the country, created by key local people. Blogs are already integral to the newspaper sites, with 34,000 pages being read across the group in the last week alone, and will become more so, as the group looks to tap into the niche publishing of ‘Long Tail’ economics, illustrated most vividly (and to some attendees’ consternation) by the ‘Geordie Dreamer’.
The group are also working on technology to rank stories by the number of people viewing them. “Newsworthiness used to be a judgement of what would sell copies,” he explained, but for the website it is a judgement of what will generate page views.
Save this story on del.icio.us / Digg this story
Paul Bradshaw lectures on the Journalism degree at UCE Birmingham media department. He writes a number of blogs including the Online Journalism Blog, Interactive PR and Web and New Media
Online Journalism Blog 