ONA: Is ‘citizen journalist’ an appropriate term?
Cory Bergman October 18th, 2007
(KING5.com’s Dale Steinke is sending in quick reports from the Online News Association annual confab in Toronto.) About 300 people attended CBC.ca’s Future of News event last night, and one of the discussions centered around citizen journalism. Andrew Keen, who authors the book “The Cult of the Amateur,” said being a good citizen and being a good journalist are contradictory, saying he believes good journalists aren’t necessarily good citizens. Leonard Brody, CEO and founder of NowPublic, doesn’t like the term either. People can be eyes and ears, but not necessarily good reporters. “The news business is confronting a cultural storm,” Keen said. CJ, Web 2.0, or whatever you want to call it, is a response to increasingly fragmented society. When the media rolls over to the audience and shows it your belly, “you get a good kicking.” Keen says the media should be more authoritative, not bow to audience.
Listen to clips from the session as well as add your own two cents here on CBC.ca.
4 Comments Add your own
1. Rick | October 18th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I loathe the term “citizen journalist.”
It’s not as if a painter who only does it for free (or part-time) refers to themselves as a “citizen painter.”
2. fleetwood mack | October 18th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Of course it isn’t.
Are all who post proven to be “citizens” and of what?
And what is a “journalist” other than someone who keeps a journal?
We’ve wrapped this form of self-expression in a populist name so misleading as to make my teeth hurt everytime i hear it or it is used to defend the right to run off at the mouth or keyboard.
How about a Lost Remote contest to come up with a proper name?
3. adam | October 19th, 2007 at 4:56 am
While the actually term may not be best to describe the phenomenon I couldn’t disagree more with the idea that being a good citizen and a good journalist are contradictory.
If you believe that a journalist should be more like Geraldo than Murrow than Keen might be right. But the standards that mark a good journalist have a lot in common with those that of a good citizen.
Good journalists help empower and make better citizens and vice versa.
I do however agree that a guy who happens to capture a train wreck on his cell phone might not be best termed a “citizen journalist”.
Maybe it’s time to rebrand “Man On The Street”.
4. Michael Rosenblum | October 25th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
We are all journalists, are we not? Is this not the bedrock of the First Amendment. Is this not why the US does not license journalists. Everyone has the right to participate in the great public discourse. The notion of ‘citizen journalist’ invites the notion that there might be other ‘professional’ journalists - a higher category. This is nonsense. We are all in this together, and that is no bad thing.
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