Citizen journalism isn’t a panacea

For a business so young, digital journalism sure has some hoary old shibboleths. Yesterday I had a go at traditional notions of blogging holding back new forms of engagement; today it’s a return to another concept that sends me barking… citizen journalism. My regular reader will recall some wonky academic analysis set me off around 18 months ago, some rubbish union pronouncement this time last year.

So I was delighted when Vin Crosbie - one of the longest-serving and most respected voices in digital journalism - finally did the unthinkable and called bullshit on some of the extraordinary extensions of the cit-j concept which have stretched its credibility to breaking point.

Vin originally made his comments on Poynter’s Online News mailing list. But I, and a few others by the sound of things, pleaded with Vin to post it on his blog so we could link to it.

He’s done so now, and I think it makes valuable reading for anyone considering how to wind more user interaction into an MSM operation, anyone thinking of funding another of those slightly pointless cit-j websites, or anyone teaching journalism.

Here are a few snippets:

“Don’t get me wrong: The concept behind ‘citizen journalism’ is noble, much like Karl Marx’s vision of pure communism or Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s vision of natural goodness or Ayn Rand’s vision of objective individualism.

However, I live in the world of real people. It’s hard enough to find a professional journalist who can sit through 52 weeks of zoning board hearings and write intelligently about that, nonetheless finding an amateur who doesn’t have a vested interest or axe to grind and who can sit through and objectively write about those hearings.

Too much of what’s being cloaked or prattled about in our industry as ‘citizen journalism’ isn’t journalism at all and a lot of it is simply b*llsh#t. I’m sorry, but I’m tired of all this groupthink. We need objective reporting about this topic, too.

[...]

Citizen journalism is a supplement, not a panacea. Citizen journalism itself isn’t going to reverse the declines in news readership, listernership, and viewership. Not by a longshot. The real solution requires more than just the tools that folks in our industry are calling ‘citizen journalism’ and that are providing so much distraction.”

Amen to that. Do go and read the whole thing.