Media Maze

Published: Sunday, March 8, 2009

The field of journalism is ever changing and progressing. Journalists now have the option to write for papers, magazines, blog sites and a myriad of Internet publication. The world of online news has stories covered by video, pictures and written stories that allow people to be in touch with the world with a double click of a mouse. Internet is where media consumption is headed, and media outlets are doing their best to keep up with the new trends of reporting and news coverage. With the days of print slowly coming to an end, the news industry is trying to make the online portion of journalism original and accessible, covering topics both local and national. The newest trend growing is “citizen journalism.” These additions to the field will be watched closely to see whether they help or hurt existing journalists in the field. According to The New York Times, they launched two Web sites last Monday featuring citizen journalists from five different communities in New Jersey and New York. The communities covered are Milburn, Maplewood and South Orange, N.J. and Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, N.Y. The material for these sites comes from local residents of the communities with a Times staffer overseeing the site. There are initial recruited contributors, and the mission of the sites is to encourage and instigate people in communities to do their own reporting. This is being done to get residents to use their creativity to help build a more local online community. This new branch of the Times Web sites are also collaborating with the New York Graduate School of Journalism to help teach citizens how to be good citizen journalists. Jim Schachter, the editor of digital initiatives, said the goal of the sites is to educate the community on how to be good contributors and also create a real quality community that figures out the answers to questions on the minds of people in each place. This new venture of the Times is a good idea to get people involved in participating in news coverage and reporting. This newspaper covers events and issues on an international level, and it can be hard to cover everything that’s going on. These citizen journalists will give the Times the ability to cover small town instances from a local’s point of view and the story will also be humanized. It also gives the chance for everyday people to get a glimpse into how journalism works and what it takes to write and present a story to the public. It is possible to think that these stories will inspire readers to investigate situations further themselves and also find their own issues to be reported in these communities. It also allows for areas that may be neglected in news coverage because other events take precedence over them to finally have their stories told by the way of those who have first-hand accounts of what happened. Although there are these many positives that will come with the ability for citizens to present the issues that they find important, one can also wonder if there will be any negative effects with this new aspect of journalism. The fact is that an everyday citizen is not the same as an experienced, trained journalist. Many writers who are starting out can sometimes editorialize too much in their stories instead of just attributing the proper information to those who said it. There also must be a balance on the two sides of a story. There is the risk that the readers of these stories will get confused by what is fact and what is opinion. These citizen journalists will learn what is acceptable when reporting news and what is not. They are not presenting a blog or editorial to The New York Times — they are supposed to be presenting a news story. The Times is a prestigious name in news, and if these stories aren’t written the right way they run the risk of ruining the confidence that the readers put on them everyday. There needs to be a system of checks and balances that goes on between the citizen reporters and the staff overseeing what goes on with the stories on the site. One of the biggest names in the news industry is not going to just pull anybody off the street to report for them, and it is safe to assume they will undergo a series of training on how to get the best story possible. There is the possibility that citizen journalism will be a very successful addition to The New York Times Web site. The worry could be that the need for trained journalists may be slowly fading away as the need for printed papers goes too. There will only be a need for teachers to help educate people on how to properly write the story and editors to oversee what is going on. It may take awhile for that to happen but it is not a possibility to rule out. But for now we should think of citizen journalism as a positive addition to the media. As long as it is done correctly, these people may give information on issues the public hasn’t even considered and give us a look into the lives of people living in certain areas and what kind of events are going on there

(Via .)http://www.dailytargum.com/