The citizen Journalism movement
This is a good article about the origins of citizen Journalism and the part that citizen journalists played in breaking the scandal over the firing of eight U.S. attorney.
Commenting on the important role for such a new media that is not corporate dominated and owned, but that is able to fulfill the role of citizen journalism, Linda Milazzo writes, "New Media voices ... won't permit another president to disregard the will of the people as the "Old Press" wantonly do, a new press will have free unencumbered voices, much of which arise from the Internet."(12)
Citizen Journalism has played a big part in the middle east when the mainstream media is often run by the government and their are severe restriction on freedom of speech. In China, Iran and Egypt several bloggers have been arrested for casting a spotlight on social justice.
OhmyNews International is a good site to go to for stories about citizen journalism since Oh My news was one of the first major media organizations to promote citizen journalism.
Iraq still remains the most dangerous assignment for Journalists according to the Committee to Project Journalists as the death toll for Journalists killed since 2003 reaches 100. This also is one of the reasons why American journalists rarely leave the settle of the green zone to capture the story of Iraq civilians. The best way to get their story as I state in early blogs is to go on the Internet and search out blogs and video blogs create by Iraq citizens.
The Sunlight Foundation is pooling citizen journalists to investigate the government. One of the projects gives directions of how to see if representatives are putting their spouses on their campaign payrolls.
So far they have investigated 438 member and found 19 spouses who were paid by a member's campaign committee-totaling $636,876 since January 1, 2005.
They have also sent letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging her to lobby for legislation to require members file their personal financial information as part of their campaign for government transparency.
Here is a good blog about the development of blogging and how the mainstream media has turned towards bloggers and citizen Journalists for help with reporting.
The L.A. Times published a debate between two journalists about the current state of the news media and its future. They both seem to agree that the Internet is
opening up a whole new world and dramatically transforming the possibilities for journalism.
and To secure its future, Big Media is going to have to try something it hasn't excelled at in recent years: Producing a quality product.
More and more websites from The Chicago Tribune with Triblocal to neighborsgo are going up all the time that act like community bulletin board with community-generated content, where people can post info and picture on local events. In a sense these sites let average citizens contribute to a profiles of their home town Like MySpace made the art of creating you own profile popular. In a way these sites can also give little towns a chance to advertise themselves with real stories from people without all the spin that tourism office's dream up.
Showing posts with label citizen Journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label citizen Journalism. Show all posts
Monday, May 7, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Media: Fire newstaff Hire Programmers
Here is the Trib. vs. Sun-times ad Mocking the Mac Vs. PC ads
Tribune only recent Triumph Red Eye?
Look for our classmate in video.
Excutives at the Chicago Tribune have announced another round of firings at its Flagship and the Los Angeles Times with both papers hit by declining advertising revenues and a first quarter loss of 4 percent.
Its hard to believe that this latest round of "spring cleaning" by the Trib. has nothing to do with, real estate mogul Sam Zell purchasing the Tribune Media Group. Last year on August 25, the Trib . laid off 250 jobs and another 120 on July 14. In 2005 they dropped 900 jobs on December 7, and over 200 jobs on July 7 2004. So over the last three years they have laid off a total of 1,720 employees according to I Want Media.
While newspaper ad revenue and circulation is down in almost every category you can break it up to according to The State of the News Media 2006. Many people believe that online ad revenue will one day like 2018 surpass print advertising. Lets hope that day comes a little sooner for anyone who still has dreams of becoming a reporter at a major newspaper. Like me. Damn you Tribune Dream squasher.
While the Trib. is worried about the decline stock price since its peak on 12/32/04 at $82 a share some people other newspapers are exploring new ways to use the Internet to cash in on new ad revenue.
Daily newspapers laid off around 600 people during 2005 which is about half of the 1,200 to 1,500 reduction that is projected for 2006 by the state of the media report that comes in March.
there are a few special cases where newspapers are actually transitions from print to web and gaining in profit at the same time.
The Wall Street Journal is a special case with more than 764,000 paid subscribers to its online version, and profits of its extended online operations, including indexes and “Marketwatch,” now outstripping those of the print edition.
The report had a warning about the effect of cutting staff has on the quality of newspapers.
Our sense based on the data is that deep news-staff cuts, however logical a response to tough times, may be undermining the core product in dangerous ways. The practice is certainly eating away at the range and depth of newspaper journalism in many communities.
What is inspiring the recent layoffs in the newspaper industry? not falling revenue but stagnate revenue growth.
The threat to newspapers now appears from nearly every indicator. From 1950 through 1999, for instance, newspaper revenue grew seven percent a year. From 2000 through 2006, by contrast, it has grown by just 0.5%. Then in the first quarter of 2006, growth was even less: 0.35%.
Newspapers people have been hiring Journalist-Programmers who can make their website more user friendly and using their web sites to cover stories from all angles using interactive graphics. On example of a newspaper that has done this is TheNewsTribune.com Tacoma, Washington.
One other thing that might be causing the Tribune to cut its workforce Moody's cuts Tribune rating deeper into junk since the deal with Sam Zell's will give them $8.4 billion in dept. Which means should they evertake out a loan on anything the interest on it will go throw the roof.
Tribune only recent Triumph Red Eye?
Look for our classmate in video.
Excutives at the Chicago Tribune have announced another round of firings at its Flagship and the Los Angeles Times with both papers hit by declining advertising revenues and a first quarter loss of 4 percent.
Its hard to believe that this latest round of "spring cleaning" by the Trib. has nothing to do with, real estate mogul Sam Zell purchasing the Tribune Media Group. Last year on August 25, the Trib . laid off 250 jobs and another 120 on July 14. In 2005 they dropped 900 jobs on December 7, and over 200 jobs on July 7 2004. So over the last three years they have laid off a total of 1,720 employees according to I Want Media.
While newspaper ad revenue and circulation is down in almost every category you can break it up to according to The State of the News Media 2006. Many people believe that online ad revenue will one day like 2018 surpass print advertising. Lets hope that day comes a little sooner for anyone who still has dreams of becoming a reporter at a major newspaper. Like me. Damn you Tribune Dream squasher.
While the Trib. is worried about the decline stock price since its peak on 12/32/04 at $82 a share some people other newspapers are exploring new ways to use the Internet to cash in on new ad revenue.
Daily newspapers laid off around 600 people during 2005 which is about half of the 1,200 to 1,500 reduction that is projected for 2006 by the state of the media report that comes in March.
there are a few special cases where newspapers are actually transitions from print to web and gaining in profit at the same time.
The Wall Street Journal is a special case with more than 764,000 paid subscribers to its online version, and profits of its extended online operations, including indexes and “Marketwatch,” now outstripping those of the print edition.
The report had a warning about the effect of cutting staff has on the quality of newspapers.
Our sense based on the data is that deep news-staff cuts, however logical a response to tough times, may be undermining the core product in dangerous ways. The practice is certainly eating away at the range and depth of newspaper journalism in many communities.
What is inspiring the recent layoffs in the newspaper industry? not falling revenue but stagnate revenue growth.
The threat to newspapers now appears from nearly every indicator. From 1950 through 1999, for instance, newspaper revenue grew seven percent a year. From 2000 through 2006, by contrast, it has grown by just 0.5%. Then in the first quarter of 2006, growth was even less: 0.35%.
Newspapers people have been hiring Journalist-Programmers who can make their website more user friendly and using their web sites to cover stories from all angles using interactive graphics. On example of a newspaper that has done this is TheNewsTribune.com Tacoma, Washington.
One other thing that might be causing the Tribune to cut its workforce Moody's cuts Tribune rating deeper into junk since the deal with Sam Zell's will give them $8.4 billion in dept. Which means should they evertake out a loan on anything the interest on it will go throw the roof.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Airing Uncomfortable Truths
In crisis's wake, focus is on 'citizen journalism' - Orlando Sentinel : Lifestyle In crisis's wake, focus is on 'citizen journalism' - Orlando Sentinel : Lifestyle
In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech Massacre CNN received cell-phone video shot by Jamal Albarghouti through their I-report initiative, that encourages viewers to send in video and photographs to the network's website. The video recorded outside of Norris Hall caught the sound of several gunshots. Its the only footage of that catches the shooting as it happened. This video has been played over and over again on CNN over the last week.
In the past reporters usually arrive to the scene of a crime after the smoke has cleared and the police have taken away the bad guy.
Technology has made it easy for eyewitnesses to document events as they happened. Within a few hours the media can broadcast the footage for millions to see.
The key to Citizen Journalism is usually about being at the wrong place at the wrong time like Jamal Albarghouti was when he found himself outside of Norris Hall.
bringing the audience closer to the action and seeing it from the point of view of a direct witness tot he events rather then a reporter flow in to cover the story is an example of how citizen journalism can enhance news coverage.
A few days after the massacre NBC aired the video that the killer sent them. NBC received heat from the victims families for airing what they saw as propaganda of a delusional psycho while other people in the media argued that the public needed to see this to reignite the debate about what to do with the mentally ill and gun control.
Jeff Jarvis said that the video could have ended up on YouTube if NBC did not air it or another site.
"We need a debate in this country about our mental health and privacy laws." Jarvis said.
"It is Journalism's jobs to give us the uncomfortable truths."
When I first saw the footage my first reaction was why are we airing the rant of a madman? why are giving him any air time at all, to glorify the mass murder that he carried out?
After taking in the coverage I think Jarvis and other members of the media that have defended NBC for airing the clip. I have a hard time believing that NBC could keep the tape from ending up on YouTube once they realized what they had. As long as the video is not played every time they find a new detail about the killer.
You can see what the President of NBC had to say about airing the video at http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=6405306
Protest of airing VaTech killer video
Should the video be taking off of YouTube?
Bringing uncomfortable truths to light to the public light is part of the media's job. It also their job to continue the public debate even of issues like gun control and how to deal with the mentally ill that have not been address in a long time.
The coverage should focus less on what was in the killer's head and more on how he was able to carry out this horrific act despite all the warning signs.
We need to reexamine our laws regarding the purchased of firearms. We need to take a second look with how we deal with mentally ill people. Most of we need to remember the victims and how 32 lives were destroyed in one day.
Tribune to victims
In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech Massacre CNN received cell-phone video shot by Jamal Albarghouti through their I-report initiative, that encourages viewers to send in video and photographs to the network's website. The video recorded outside of Norris Hall caught the sound of several gunshots. Its the only footage of that catches the shooting as it happened. This video has been played over and over again on CNN over the last week.
In the past reporters usually arrive to the scene of a crime after the smoke has cleared and the police have taken away the bad guy.
Technology has made it easy for eyewitnesses to document events as they happened. Within a few hours the media can broadcast the footage for millions to see.
The key to Citizen Journalism is usually about being at the wrong place at the wrong time like Jamal Albarghouti was when he found himself outside of Norris Hall.
bringing the audience closer to the action and seeing it from the point of view of a direct witness tot he events rather then a reporter flow in to cover the story is an example of how citizen journalism can enhance news coverage.
A few days after the massacre NBC aired the video that the killer sent them. NBC received heat from the victims families for airing what they saw as propaganda of a delusional psycho while other people in the media argued that the public needed to see this to reignite the debate about what to do with the mentally ill and gun control.
Jeff Jarvis said that the video could have ended up on YouTube if NBC did not air it or another site.
"We need a debate in this country about our mental health and privacy laws." Jarvis said.
"It is Journalism's jobs to give us the uncomfortable truths."
When I first saw the footage my first reaction was why are we airing the rant of a madman? why are giving him any air time at all, to glorify the mass murder that he carried out?
After taking in the coverage I think Jarvis and other members of the media that have defended NBC for airing the clip. I have a hard time believing that NBC could keep the tape from ending up on YouTube once they realized what they had. As long as the video is not played every time they find a new detail about the killer.
You can see what the President of NBC had to say about airing the video at http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=6405306
Protest of airing VaTech killer video
Should the video be taking off of YouTube?
Bringing uncomfortable truths to light to the public light is part of the media's job. It also their job to continue the public debate even of issues like gun control and how to deal with the mentally ill that have not been address in a long time.
The coverage should focus less on what was in the killer's head and more on how he was able to carry out this horrific act despite all the warning signs.
We need to reexamine our laws regarding the purchased of firearms. We need to take a second look with how we deal with mentally ill people. Most of we need to remember the victims and how 32 lives were destroyed in one day.
Tribune to victims
Monday, April 16, 2007
Libel on YouTube
Hawaii's Go Airlines files a lawsuit against website
Bloogger threaten with a lawsuit after she wrote about her personal experience
According to the Media Law Resource Center people attacking other people in blogs and video have sparked some 60 libel lawsuits. Today everyone who has a beef against their boss, fellow coworker or rival candidate can blog about it or create a video blog and upload it to YouTube. When does a practical joke go to far to the point where you can be suit for libel? When you secretly record it and upload it to YouTube for the world to watch over and over again.
Sites like YouTube and MySpace have content editors to censor out offensive material but their is only so much they can take out do. Mecaca moments are bond to get through because what some peope might see as a harmless joke will be racists and highly offensive to others.
The site DontDateHimGirl.com allows women to post the name and pictures of guys they have dated along with reasons not to date them. Few of the women that write on the site have any idea that they can be suit for libel for identifying their ex's and writing about them in this public forum. There are 91 profiles of men in Chicago. How can any of these men get a date after their last girlfriend profiles them as a liar and a cheater like Otis "Big O Lucky" for example? How do you distinguish pure gossip from a someone out for revenge from the truth on the Internet? You can't.
The freedom of the blogosphere and the vlogosphere for people to rant and rave about anything they want has let blogger Tim O'Reilly to draft a Blogger's Code of Conduct.
So far O'Reilly has come up with seven rules for bloggers to follow like consider eliminating anonymous comments, and take responsibility not just for your own words but for the comments you allow on your blog.
He is not only asking bloggers to be upfront and accurate about their statements but to also filter their comments. This is a practical idea but I believe that it will only be followed by the major bloggers. many bloggers pull in a large audience in the same way as Howard Stern pulls in listens "you never know what he is going to do and say next." Other throw out controversial topics and wait for their readers to argue back and forth in the form of long rants.
The Internet is a forum that can never be completely censored nor should it be. Creating a code of conduct for blogger is a good idea but a better idea is to educated the public from a young age about libel and the consequences of offensive speech. Education the public will reduce the number of Imus moments by letting people know that their are consequences whenever you blog or rant in front of a video camera and upload it into the public domain.
You no longer have to be a celebrity, or a journalists to get the public to pay attention to you all you have to do is have something interesting or provocative to say. So Citizen Journalists use you power wisely.
Bloogger threaten with a lawsuit after she wrote about her personal experience
According to the Media Law Resource Center people attacking other people in blogs and video have sparked some 60 libel lawsuits. Today everyone who has a beef against their boss, fellow coworker or rival candidate can blog about it or create a video blog and upload it to YouTube. When does a practical joke go to far to the point where you can be suit for libel? When you secretly record it and upload it to YouTube for the world to watch over and over again.
Sites like YouTube and MySpace have content editors to censor out offensive material but their is only so much they can take out do. Mecaca moments are bond to get through because what some peope might see as a harmless joke will be racists and highly offensive to others.
The site DontDateHimGirl.com allows women to post the name and pictures of guys they have dated along with reasons not to date them. Few of the women that write on the site have any idea that they can be suit for libel for identifying their ex's and writing about them in this public forum. There are 91 profiles of men in Chicago. How can any of these men get a date after their last girlfriend profiles them as a liar and a cheater like Otis "Big O Lucky" for example? How do you distinguish pure gossip from a someone out for revenge from the truth on the Internet? You can't.
The freedom of the blogosphere and the vlogosphere for people to rant and rave about anything they want has let blogger Tim O'Reilly to draft a Blogger's Code of Conduct.
So far O'Reilly has come up with seven rules for bloggers to follow like consider eliminating anonymous comments, and take responsibility not just for your own words but for the comments you allow on your blog.
He is not only asking bloggers to be upfront and accurate about their statements but to also filter their comments. This is a practical idea but I believe that it will only be followed by the major bloggers. many bloggers pull in a large audience in the same way as Howard Stern pulls in listens "you never know what he is going to do and say next." Other throw out controversial topics and wait for their readers to argue back and forth in the form of long rants.
The Internet is a forum that can never be completely censored nor should it be. Creating a code of conduct for blogger is a good idea but a better idea is to educated the public from a young age about libel and the consequences of offensive speech. Education the public will reduce the number of Imus moments by letting people know that their are consequences whenever you blog or rant in front of a video camera and upload it into the public domain.
You no longer have to be a celebrity, or a journalists to get the public to pay attention to you all you have to do is have something interesting or provocative to say. So Citizen Journalists use you power wisely.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The Wisdom of the Crowd
The Current-Cambrain House Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing-opening up work threw the Internet to be completed by a large number of people over the Internet who either do it for free or a small fee. Think Wikipedia, Obamapedia or The Internet Movie Database (IMDb).
Open-sourcing is the nearest cousin to crowdsourcing, generally referring to crowdsourced work on software source code that is available for others to change, add to and build on, as with the Linux operating system.
Corporations and non-profits social services organizations are working with free-lancers and consultants beyond their organization to help them with research using crowdsourcing. AssignmentZero launched by Wired in March 2007 is the first attempt by the mainstream media to harness the power of the crowd to find and add to news stories.
InnoCentive will pay people to solve real research challenge for companies like Procter & Gamble.
Weather Crowdsouring is the Next Big Thing? in Citizen journalism or not is hard to say. For some websites and big new stories it would work very well. If you did a history of Chicago's transit system for example crowdsouring would be great but for small quick stories crowdsourcing would only complicated things.
There is also NewAssignment.Net started by NYU Journalisms professor Jay Rosen that will let readers help decide the topics to cover and how by signing up to pursue part of the story. the first story will cover crowsouring. Several newspapers are looking at different ways to turn into Information Centers that collect info from citizens in the streets as well as there reporters.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Topix lets citizen post local news online
Topix is one of a growing number of new aggregators that has began to let citizens upload local stories giving readers the opportunity to search for stories of a small town written and produced by the people who live there.
Seizing on growing interest in Internet-based "citizen journalists" — stories and images posted by the public — news site Topix.com will introduce an area where anyone can post or edit reports, commentary and photos about local happenings.
Site visitors can find the items about their locality by entering a ZIP code or town name into the site's search engine.
The users' material will supplement Topix' current service that collects and posts news from 50,000 traditional newspapers and blogs.
If you look at the page for Chicago you will see that the page is also edited by citizen journalists from Chicago. While many of the stories are just short blog entries with links to local newspaper articles this site has created forms where people can edit, update and point out related news in new ways. Now every story can be reported on by a thousands of citizens on connected by the Internet. This is the evolution of the news story. From a dead article in a newspaper filed by the reporting of one person to a living story with several contributors that can be debated in a public forum for the world to see.
Topix laid out its plan of attack on April 1st. The center for Citizen Media has created a informed page on the principles of how to be good citizen journalists.
The University of Maryland has ten new projects in community community news such as :
New Castle News Forum. To create a weekly cyber newspaper built from citizen-generated content for the Chappaqua area in Westchester County, N.Y., which has lost its local newspaper. The project is spearheaded by local volunteers under the auspices of the Friends of the Chappaqua Library.
Who needs mapping software when you have My Maps. Google just create a new feature that lets you add place marks and lines to their maps.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Immigration: The Human Cost | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
The Knight Citizen News Network: started a site to help citizen Journalist get all the tools they need to tell their local stories.
The Onion has just launched a site for fake news video called the Onion News Network.
In The Know: Our Troops In Iraq
Is very funny while the Immigration the Human Cost can only be funny to extreme liberals who choose to ignore the problem of Illegal Immigration.
Immigration: The Human Cost
The Onion has just launched a site for fake news video called the Onion News Network.
In The Know: Our Troops In Iraq
Is very funny while the Immigration the Human Cost can only be funny to extreme liberals who choose to ignore the problem of Illegal Immigration.
Immigration: The Human Cost
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Milestones in Blogging
For those of you that still believe that bloggers should not be considered part of the "Press" because many of them are written by geeks from their parents basement this story may change your mind.
The California Legislature gave blogger Frank D. Russo a "Press" credential by the California Correspondents Association. Russo is the first blogger to be credentialed for his blog the California Progress Report.
Politics and Technology: California Legislature credentials first blogger as "press"
will this lead to more bloggers being credentialed and being treated like members of the "Press"
or is it just a sign of the blurring line between citizen Journalists and real Journalists -(Whatever that means anymore) no one knows.
I think that what it proves is that you do not have to be part of the corporate media to be recognized by the CCA as part of the "Press". Bloggers and other citizen journalists should have the opportunity to become credential members of the press if they have a proven background of providing accurate interesting news.
Their body of work of a journalists should matter more then what college they graduated from or if they worked for the mainstream media.
Since I have spend the last 2 years working for the school newspaper my body of work is next to worthless.
The blogosphere hit another milestone recently Blogs turn 10
people have been ranting and raving online for ten years on every subject imaginable. Now there are over 100 million blogs around the world this is now the hobby of computer geeks and their four-eyed, pencil pushing children who are spending more time in front of the Computer screen then the Tele.
However in China Blog is still nasty version off that evil thing we like to call "Free Speech"
Zhang Ming, Dean of political sciences at Renmin University of China lost his post for a blog post that broke the "hidden rules" of posting an article attacking the "Bureaucratization of Chinese colleges."
Zhang will remain a professor at the university bu the university said that his blog post was lies which "Victimized its faculty".
But Blogs are so last decade today's techy are wasting their time glued to the YouTube watching vlogs that range from funny version of the news like Rocketboom to a Vlog by US soldiers in Iraq. The vlog called "May God have Mercy on our souls" made by a Fort Lewis Stryker recon platoon known as "Deuce Four" called
A memorial to Spc. Jeremiah Schmunk
So keep Vlog, blogging and logging hour upon hour on Warcraft slowly the mainstream media is realizing the power of citizen journalism.
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