This, coupled with the talk at university some weeks ago, sparked further interest for me in the libel and defamation areas of media law.

Having a particular fondness for celebrity journalism, defamation of individuals and celebrities in particular interested me. Media law states that individuals and corporations are allowed to be defamed if it is in the public interest, which is most notably evident recently in the case of Rolf Harris facing charges for his connection with the Jimmy Saville sex abuse inquiry. For cases such as this, such laws are a real victory for journalism as someone so well respected as Harris, I believe, should rightly be defamed for such delinquency.

I found it interesting however that when suing publications, the claimant doesn’t actually have to prove that the statement was untruthful, just that the writer caused some form of defamation through it. It surprised me that that the press can still technically write falsehoods, which until Rolf Harris is found guilty could be the case. Yet as this is in the public interest, the world is made aware.

The bill is not inclusive of individual bloggers or those working for a small blogs that employ under ten people and turnover under £2million annually. This links back to my post regarding the Boston marathon bombings, surely ‘the man on the roof’ was technically being defamed, yet the micro blogger who tweeted this be sued within English law through being exempt from the new act.

I wonder therefore if occurrences such as this continue with the rise of citizen journalism, if an act will in future consider micro bloggers being held liable for the defamation of others.

Do you think the act should include micro bloggers and small blogs in future? Or will this limit freedom of speech to an unacceptable level?

It’s 2 am and I’m lying awake in bed for the third time this week. And not because of the Redbull I had tonight. For the third time this week I am glued to police scanner feed, this time from Watertown, MA.

I am also consistently refreshing twitter and have CNN on with closed captioning in the background.

But tonight rings significant not only because of the events in Massachusetts (though they are again, horrifying), but because it shows the rise in dominance of new media (Twitter & Reddit) over the older of television. As a former TV producer, turned community manger this both saddens and excites me, but here’s why I think it’s happening:

People want instant gratification and they want to know everything.

Producing television is an art. It requires hours of preparation, on a bad day, simply minutes on an epic day, but putting something on television requires many senses to be engaged, quickly and continuously. People expect to see, hear and learn things of interest- and one station, even of brilliant reporters, cannot report that fast. As much as they’d want to, traditional news outlets cannot overload you with information and provide you with the instant gratification that a simpler medium can. They also don’t have the dynamic ability of a digital property.

Traditional media is trying TOO HARD to keep up and in the process they are slipping and following all over themselves trying to keep us updated. I can’t tell you the number of times I have been driven nuts this week by media outlets misreporting –

(Cough-Cough-CNN-Marathon-Bomber-Suspect-In-Custody-WAIT-FBI-Says-No-He’s-Not)

– or for showing unnecessary and unhelpful interviews by victims –

(asking a victim of the West Texas Factory Explosion, “What was in her heart” after a near-death-experience via falling sheetrock in West, Texas).

All because they are trying to get viewers new, relevant, content quickly. They’re also not working fast enough to bring us what we want, everything. It’s not entirely news station’s fault, though, they just aren’t built to handle the news that way.

This tripping and falling wouldn’t have been so bad, had people not discovered quicker alternatives.

Enter new media like Twitter and Reddit.

Twitter is a has become a popular media because:

1. It can be instantly updated
2. It can be updated by by multiple people (citizen journalism, croudsourcing info, many reporters – one medium)
3. Updates are only 140 characters of text

Mediums like Twitter and Reddit are inherently more satisfying for breaking news, because they don’t have to spend so much time research and funneling. Tweeters don’t have to wait for multiple sources to confirm, or for b-roll to appear, they just post.

Twitter is full of multiple people providing updates to the same place, and those updates are first person sources, which is exactly what news stations are trying to do when they interview people. It’s also a lot more effective than one person delivering the news. And its a lot quicker. Twitter also allows people to get that instant gratification they lose when they let news stations be the aggregator or the gate keeper to information.

Traditional news, in this case, can do a great job of providing well-rounded coverage, and streaming from the scene, but they can’t break details as quickly as Twitter can.

Note: the police scanner has also proved a very trusty tool. While older than television, it follows similar guidelines, to a reddit or twitter: it provides instant gratification and first hand accounts, it’s also only auditory. When I first opened it 36,000 people were listening, and now it’s over 79,000!

So, are traditional news sources going to go away completely? Of course not. Not nearly half of the American public uses twitter and Reddit, or wants to put in the effort. Plus it’s extremely nice to have someone do the work of aggregation, fact-checking and analysis for you, and people love watching the news. On a personal note, there’s nothing like the pure adrenaline high or producing a breaking live newscast and doing it well.

I believe, however, the way people consume news, the way outlets report news, and the accuracy we should demand from news, will be changed forever.

***One more thought of note, and something of which we are reminded this week, the importance of local news outlets, and reporters. In each of the last few nights, the people who have been able to get us any information are not reporters in the big, highly-rated, highly-coveted, metro area spots. This week, the people getting us the news, on the ground, whether it’s on Twitter, television or otherwise. Local reporters, who risk their lives and lose nights’ sleep getting the details are hugely important to the news ecosystem. To my friends in Idaho, Northern Michigan and the rest of middle-of-nowhere, keep up all that great work you’re doing! **

UPDATE: This article was written to show the progression of News journalism, but not to suggest that Twitter or Reddit is, in fact, a better way to follow the news, simply more satisfying. For a great article on why “Breaking News is Broken” there is a great article on Slate.com that deserves a read.

This was most evident today as the situation in Boston unfolded. While mainstream media outlets were scrambling to put together reports and confirm information, Reddit users were bringing together information from Twitter, police scanners and local news stations to create a live stream of what was happening.

Eyewitness accounts, pictures, videos, and audio were all contributed to Reddit threads (part one, part 2) with various users combining them into a timeline of events. Able to post much faster than the media outlets, up to the minute updates were available with each new piece of information. It’s pretty amazing. Even across the world, it felt like I was in Boston, receiving live updates from the scene. That’s the power of social media and crowdsourcing.

Of course, there’s always a lot of junk to sift through. False reports, conflicting information and even wrongly identified suspects have all features in these threads. But the value in being able to immediately get information from so many sources is huge. Technology is so pervasive, and we are so used to sharing our lives online, to the point where everyone is a potential news breaker. This is where news outlets like CNN can’t compete.

However, that’s not to say that traditional news is dying. Far from it. In fact, I’d say that these two types of reporting inform each other. Citizen journalism is a niche kind of reporting – best suited for breaking news events like the situation in Boston. News outlets have a greater duty to be accurate in their reporting, and need to act as a filter for citizen journalism – ensuring misinformation is not broadcasted.

What I found particularly interesting in the wake of the Boston bombings was the FBI’s request for any photos that people had taken. With the release of the 2 suspects’ photos today, people have actually been able to identify these suspects in their photos. One incredibly unsettling photo shows one of the victims – 8 year old Martin Richard – within metres of a suspect.

I’ve mainly focused on Reddit, since that’s where I first heard about the story, but other news blogs have excellent write ups too.

According to the Huffington Post “a dedicated subset of Anonymous called ‘Your Anon News’” raised over $54,000 on Indiegogo to start their site.

According to Gabriella Coleman, Anonymous scholar, anyone can be Anonymous as long as they self-identify as such.

The goal of the group is to disseminate information the group considers vital to news consumers that mainstream media might miss. Essentially they want to separate out celebrity news and so forth from things that actually impact people’s lives like politics etc.

I have nothing wrong with people, whether or not they are in the journalism profession, trying to find out information and spread the word about what they discover whether this be through word of mouth or writing and…well you get my point. I think when citizens are interested in figuring out what exactly goes on in our town, state, culture, world and so on, it is absolutely great.

In my journalism class we have discussed citizen journalism, what it is, whether or not it is beneficial and what does that mean for journalists among other things. I think something I have been hearing frequently is that this type of journalism could jeopardize the truth of whatever story is being told…I am not trying to say that people are not compitent and can not verify facts, I am just saying that sometimes it is easier to get attached to one side of a story when there are several sides. I do not know if that makes sense, so let me clarify.

People, even journalists in training like myself, can be biased towards certain things. Journalists of course are supposed to remain objective and in an ideal world that would not only be easy but probably a piece of cake. But that is not the case. I think some people may get so caught up in believing one side of the story that they overlook the other.

I must say though, I understand the creation of this group and their goal. I agree that sometimes there is a blurring of the lines between news that is important and actually impacts our lives and celebrity or entertainment based news. It is not that these do not qualify as news but they are very different type in my opinion.

I think entertainment or celebrity based information has been incorporated into news to improve ratings or circulation (depending on the publication). But we also have to remember that everyone has a different definition of what they consider news.

Of course may people might find political or government related news, things going on among various countries etc important but some may also consider celebrity news important as well. I am not one of those individuals but I know several people who are. For others its sports, business or even technology based news to name a few.

The article does say that the “new website will allow [them] to collect breaking reports and blog postings from the best independent reporters online.” It also says that they hope to become a “hub of independent reporters.” Originally when I read this part  I was thinking actual journalists, but that does not seem to be the case.

Like I said before I think it is great if people want to really invest their time in providing their community with information that the media does not, but in their opinion, should cover.

like what is going on in politics, the government and nationwide. I think there has been a blurring of the lines as time progressed.

I must agree though that there should be a separation between celebrity news and the news that really affects us

I feel like things like celebrity news is extra fluff added into the news in order to attract more people to the publication.

I do think there should be a clearer distinction especially when it comes to celebrity information incorporated into the news. It is understandable if something vital happened in the celebrity world that would impact consumers be it death of legendary celebs etc (not just deaths but that was the first example that came to mind).

It kind of scares me to think that an entire publication will be or could be run strictly by citizen journalists. It is mainly verification and fact checking concerns I have with citizen journalism.

Publications like CNN are allowing such journalism but only to an extent. CNN iReport allows this but the editors will go through various stories to verify the story.

I guess we will just have to see how this goes if or once Anonymous’s site goes up…

The majority of the time, these platforms are nothing but beneficial for readers and journalists alike. They provide a quick and easy way to distribute and receive the latest breaking news and has consequently allowed readers to also become citizen journalists when they are at the heart of the action.

With the floor of citizen journalism open to anyone, social media however cannot be considered as a solely positive and, more importantly, a wholly reliable source for news. I realised the extent to which this was true in the Boston bombing attacks on Monday, when the above photo was circulating Twitter.

According to Twitchy, this photo was taken years previous to the Boston bombings. Furthermore, this girl was not killed in the attack on Monday, was not running for Sandy Hook children and was more than likely not even anything to do with the race. I was disgusted, a truly dark side of citizen journalism had become blindingly apparent, the motives of an egotistical tweeter (@hopeforboston) using both the Boston bombing and Sandy Hook tragedies for personal gain and self-promotion, disguising oneself as a kind hearted and respectful news bearer.

Aside from selfish motives, citizen journalism on social media can be seen to be dangerous for conspiracy, allowing suspicions and assumptions to be wide spread in a small space of time. This was evident later on in the evening on the 15^th of April, when conspiracy spread regarding the above photo as someone tweeted it and asked who this man was. Tweeters immediately decided he was a suspect, with no evidence nor grounds for this claim to fall upon, with newspapers and online publications consequently quick to also speculate and publish the photo.

There was no connection found and he turned out to be part of the marathon security, but inevitably the man in the photo must have been terrified of his fate as a consequence of this, whilst simultaneously counting his blessings that his face was not identifiable. Imagine if the photo was clear enough to reveal his face? The world would think he was connected to the biggest bombing in America in recent years and all because someone took it upon themselves to claim suspect of this innocent man.

This serves as a wake-up call for those, including myself, who are quick to absorb and accept what is spread on social media by sources who appear to be directly involved or there at the time when news breaks. Citizen journalism can be harming and dangerous, thus accuracy and truthfulness should be considered carefully by readers.

Are they really halfway to the grave? Well, not for me as I have the habit of reading newspaper by having the carbon print on my finger every time I finished reading which might be weird practices but I do surround by print environment since children as that time the term “Web 2.0″ still not familiar to me. 

However, this only  remain in my childhood. In 20th century, Web 2.0 had slowly spread widely and had soon become the major core of our life nowadays not only in our computer, but now also in our mobile device and camera, which soon we might as well digitalize? The picture below can gives you a short description of media revolution. 

From the picture above, we know that internet has become a big boom in this century but at the same time another term also rise up among this society which is citizen journalism. You might not realize that what is the term all about but actually you might performing the practice of citizen journalism. You might have your own blog to say what you have done today, share your opinion towards a certain issues; or even you have your Youtube account that produce some video regarding in sharing your household surrounding condition. In a way from above example, you are actually practicing citizen journalism. 

There are very big differences between traditional journalism and citizen journalism in the way of news being produced. In the article written by Thorsten Quandt (2011), it stated that the interviewee learned to “do journalism” in a traditional print environment, with next to no contact with audiences and a strong focus on in-depth research and exhaustive fact-checking while in the online environment, they are doing their research through the Internet and engaging in frequent contact with users. From the statement above, we can image that in the traditional print environment, we can relate that it is all about putting the content in paper with the deadline while the online environment there are more flexible dateline and it can update regularly.

Print journalism is not strange to us as we can usually see it. But compare to the old time, we are now retrieve the news through a click. There is a very good example of citizen journalism which is Malaysiakini. It is first launched in 1999 and is the first and most influential online news portal in Malaysia (Kabilan 2009). It now established huge readership and now had gained many reader response. It had launched a 6 weeks project which is developing the local ordinary people in becoming citizen video-journalists which they realized that the turnout is welcoming in their website however, they didn’t cover the writing skills among the citizen journalism. Later, they additionally specially trained them in writing skills for the video description purpose.    

The another example could be Wikileaks. Wikileaks is the non-profit media organisation which their mission is to bring important news and information to the public which they published the top secret of the country. The raising of Wikileaks had raise many debate main focus is the “ethic” part. How they get the information and whether the source of the news is true or not.

Ethic is the important practice among the journalism, no matter it’s offline or online version. Ethic also deals with the credibility that explains how people can trust your news. Since the booming of the internet era, the source of the news also become ambiguous. 

This is Singapore news which talks about the credibility among the traditional media and citizen journalism. From the result shown, many people still perceive the traditional media as the credible media compare to the citizen journalism. 

This lets us wonder, is it true about the certain news in online medium which is expressed through neutral opinion or own perspective? Are the news come from a reliable source? We  really have to think about it. 

In this battle, I would still prefer traditional media as my main choice as it might because of my personal habit. But I still hold an observe point of view towards online media because they are many uncertainty. 

So, which one do you prefer? 

Referencing:

Quandt T 2011, “Understanding a new phenomenon: the significance of participatory journalism, Online Newspaper: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspaper, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, West Sussex, pp. 155-176. 

Kabilan K 2009, “New Media, Citizen’s Journalism and Democracy: The Malaysiakini Project”, Media Asia, Vol 36, No.3, pp 156-58.

Thank you for reading! Have a nice day! 

I received a message in the big kindergarten sandbox called Facebook this morning. It was nicer than most… No death threats.. that was nice:

” I am asking you to stop sharing all this stuff about Boston. It is scary and not true. You are hurting the feelings of the victims. You should just let it go”

Well, I answered the human with.. “Then UNFRIEND ME.. It is a quick and  painless process. If you need me to explain how to do it, I would be happy to.”

Then I thought about this message again. This is the thoughts in a lot of heads of a lot of people. Not just sheeple, but many awake, aware people. And THAT is ok. It is empathy and hope. WE HOPE the facts we are locating are mistakes, or even down right lies! But they are not. The official story is so screwed up, the lies must be coming from there.

Even awake and aware folks want many of us to censor our thoughts or “show absolute proof” before opening our mouths. Many of us are publishing all the theories going around if they contain in ONE factual piece of info. WHY? Because we would rather give you all the info coming out and sift out the dead end leads than sit and watch the main stream media suck up to the government and the corporations and release only “official information”.

We citizen searchers and journalists, ( I fall in the latter category!), have learned some very important things in the last 25 years. One of those is FEED the Theory until the info is absolutely found to be unrelated! Start as soon as the event happens and keep on pushing until the truth emerges. The truth may only be that the official story is pure manure, but that is enough to open many eyes.

Finally, what many of us do, research, feeds on Facebook and twitter, vids, etc,etc,etc, is out of LOVE and RESPECT for the victims and our fellow human. Justice cannot be had for the victim or the rights of the human if the truth is suppressed.

More victims are to come. Boston PD , MSP, and ARMY NATIONAL GUARD MPS are searching people and restricting access to movement. The average Jane and Joe in Boston will suffer through check points and Nazi tactics, while being brainwashed to believe they are being protected. This will spread to malls and events all over the USA! We are out of time! We are all victims of programming, gov’t and corporate take over and our OWN FEAR.

So, no I will not “let it go”. I will not limit what I say to make another comfortable. We should all be uncomfortable with horror and tragedy. That Uncomfortable feeling should us all to search for the truth. It is our responsibility to our fellow human!

Investigate:

Gulf of Tonkin

Pearl Harbor

Oklahoma City

9/11

7-7

Sandy Hook

Boston

JFK

RFK

JFK Jr.

Fluoride

Vaccines

Codex Alimenteroius

Agenda 21

Bengahzi

Learn the truth…

Namaste’

The Savage

With the advance of the new technology like internet and smart phone, everyone can be a journalist. Citizen journalists are a group of people that write online without any journalistic training to work as journalists to effect changes (Kabilan 2009). According to Goode (2009), citizen journalism refers to a range of web-based practices whereby ‘ordinary’ users engage in journalist practices.  Goode (2009) mentioned that citizen journalism includes practices such as current affairs-based blogging, photo and video sharing and posting eyewitness commentary on current events. For example, the Boston “bombing” incident is everywhere on the internet right after it happened. Kabilan (2009) mentioned that it is a mode of communication that allows them to “talk to each other” about what is happening in their surroundings.  The citizen that eyewitness this incident had become the citizen journalist and report this incident on the internet. People on the other half of the earth can immediately get to know about this incident while this happen with just one click away. This news is everywhere on the social media and everyone is sharing and pray for the victims. People in everywhere do not need wait for the traditional media like newspaper or TV news to report about it and they can get all the details including pictures and video on the internet.

The citizen-media guru Dan Gillmor stated that citizen journalism is a global phenomenon that is growing in strength, complexity and power. Even the traditional media like newspaper and TV news need citizen journalism to get news and to get more information. For example, on the day when terrorist bombs exploded on London subway trains and a bus on 2005, BBC News’s Web site used images sent to them by citizens who were affected by the attacks and by the next day, their main evening TV newscast began with a package edited entirely from video sent in by viewers. With the help of citizen journalism, publishing cycle had become 24/7 instead of daily and monthly publishing or broadcast news.

Besides the timeliness of the news and information online, citizen journalist have more freedom to speak online, there are little restriction online compare to newspaper. People get to give comments and blog about the truth instead of “spin information” that publish on the traditional media like newspaper. For example, most of the newspapers in Malaysia are owned by the political parties and they will filter out the negative news towards them and maybe spin the information to favor them instead of the whole truth stories. Therefore, people are free to become the citizen journalism to blog or post about their opinion of the truth about the stories.

Due to citizen journalist is user generated content, the authenticity of the content is being questioned. There are false news circulate on the internet. For example, there is always some false news about some famous artist die due to some disease or accident.  Therefore, the professional journalists are facing some problem to authenticate content in order to cover the news from the citizen journalist as well.

“I read recently that a photo of the Statue of Liberty, falsely merged with a menacing-looking sky during Hurricane Sandy, appeared on more than 140,000 websites. I’m sure that many people will have questioned its authenticity, but I don’t think there’s been nearly enough reporting on this topic. I believe that there should be. Again, this speaks to basic journalistic values of truth and integrity.”

“I heard that during Hurricane Sandy, editors at one major media company were spending 30 to 40 minutes per UGC image in an effort to authenticate content. To put this into context, the news desks would have been receiving hundreds if not thousands of UGC submissions at that time. This situation, at best, is “quality through inspection” and flawed.” said Dave Rickley, senior editor of Operations and Technology at the Los Angeles Times (cited in Caralano 2013).

Therefore, the citizen journalist should have the ethics to only write the truth or report the truth stories. Because the truth of the stories is what the citizen want the most from the traditional media so citizen journalists should not repeat the same mistake. Citizen journalists should not abuse the power and freedom of being a citizen journalist. Citizen journalist should have self regulation and moral ethics and journalist ethic. With this, citizen can freely trust the article from citizen journalists without any doubt or wondering the authentic of the content.

Citizen journalist report without fear or favor but report with fear of reporting fake stories or news.

Reference

Caralano, M 2013, ‘What is the future of news reporting?’,Scoopshot, viewed 17 April 2013, retrieved from http://www.scoopshot.com/blog/what-is-the-future-of-news-reporting/

Goode, L 2009, ‘Social news, citizen journalism and democracy’, New Media Society, vol.11, no.8, pp.1287-1305, viewed 16 April 2013, retrieved from SAGE Journals database.

Kabilan, K 2009, ‘New Media, Citizen’s Journalism and Democracy: The Malaysiakini Project’, Media Asia, vol.36, no.3, pp. 156- 159, viewed 16 April 2013, Paper delivered in the plenary session at AMIC‟s 18th Annual Conference held on 15 July 2009 at Le Meridien Hotel, New Delhi, India.

Sambrook, R n.d, ‘Citizen Journalism and the BBC’, Nieman Reports, viewed 17 April 2013, retrieved from http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=100542

In Malaysia, the media has always been regulated by government bodies to ensure the national safety of the country (Anuar 2000). However, being regulated means information is being controlled, leading to dissatisfactory among the citizens, especially with the elections coming around, citizens wants to know the ideology and stories revolving among their supporting political groups. In short, Malaysia is a country in consisting of a diverse mosaic culture and beliefs leading to multiple perspectives and different conceptualizations of what journalism should be all about (Quandt 2011). Should it be regulated or it should not be regulated, will be the debate always. Hence, with the new form of media the internet, citizens may now also participate in writing and publishing their own stories via the platforms mentioned above through the internet, referring to Participatory Journalism. Instead of consuming the local traditional media, citizen can now approach blogs and online news website to gain further coverage over regulated government body media, giving both sides of the stories, with less regulated information to allow the citizens to justify in their own opinion right and wrong.

The future of Journalism in Malaysia revolves not just around the traditional media but also a combination of both new and traditional media. Traditional media, requires licenses to set up their organization as compared to the online media whom anyone can just publish materials with their own liking. Challenges faced by journalist today will be the need to clarify their sources and justification with the feedback of the online audiences, one of the case was the contradictory issue with TV3 in attempt of publishing a fake story of the power bikes by reporter Mazidul Akmal Sidik on the dangers it can cause by perfoming a reckless ride on the power bikes  on the local media causing an uproar with the online media in which people sharing their opinion on the unethical activity by the TV3 media. This is a reference of future journalism of both and new media combination in relation towards participatory journalism. As an inference, the new media will not be able to completely take over the traditional media but rather it requires them to work hand in hand, that will be the future of journalism.

Reference

Anuar, M.K. 2000, ‘Malaysian media and democracy’, Media Asia, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 183-183.

Quandt, T 2011, ‘Understanding a new phenomenon: the significance of participatory journalism’, in JB Singer, Hermida A, Domingo D, Heinonen A, Paulussen S, Quandt T, Reich Z & Vujnovic M (eds), Particpatory Journalism in Online Newspapers: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers, Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, West Sussex, pp 155-176.

From my personal perspective, there are two main reasons that it is hard for individuals contribute citizen journalism for news organizations.

Firstly, the news organizations serve a large range of people, the news are always with widely influence so that the news organizations can attract more readers. The content of news organizations includes different domain such as economic and international relationship. Much professional knowledge is used in these areas. It is hard for individuals to meet the requirements. However, the information and news that are published by individuals might more relate to their personal life and community. The content of their news and information primarily cover issues, events or people that affect small communities or suburban areas.  Citizen-generated content is likely published for smaller, more homogenized audiences on a less regular basis, which encourages citizen journalists to produce content dissimilar from that of daily newspaper journalists . This could lead to that the news organizations might not take the news that are published by citizen journalists. In turn, when this situation happened frequently it will reduce the enthusiasm of citizen journalism participation.

Secondly, in my opinion, another reason could be that the citizen journalists are more interested in different kinds of topics. And their articles are not like the standard form used in news organizations. Online citizen journalism articles were more likely to feature a greater diversity of topics, information from outside sources and multimedia and interactive features . For years, traditional news organizations are aimed at to create the culture authority and inform the society its news. So, there could be conflict between citizen journalism and news organization on the choice of topics. This could be a reason citizen journalist not to contribute news to news organizations.

After the application of the economic reforms in 1978, China;s economy, politics and society was under world-shaking changes. The structure of the Chinese mass media was also transformed a lot. Before the economic reforms, all media were belong to the state and were totally financed by state. After the economic reform, Chinese government began to partially privatized the news media, and began to loosen their control in mass media. Commercialized news media started to emerge after the reform. Chinese media were allowed to obtain extra founding through advertising and program sales. As part of media reform the government provided lower levels in the broadcast and print administrative hierarchy with greater authority over programming, personnel, and business decisions .

Today most media institutions finance themselves with advertising revenues, though some continue to receive indirect or small state subsidies (Stockmann, in press).  Beginning in the late 1990s broadcasting followed by print media could be publicly traded on the stock market, and beginning in 2002 non-media state companies were allowed to invest in media groups . Although there remain restrictions about the share of non-state investment into media outlets not to exceed 49%, the state has nevertheless partially transferred property from public toward private ownership . The changes in media reform were particularly focused in management, ownership and financing which lead to the marketization or commercial liberalization of media. With the availability of media sources to audience and news content, China’s mass media has become more internationalized and diverse.

China government relaxed its commercial policy in the early 1980s. More licensed were released into market so that an increasing number of media outlets began to emerge in the market. Lots of “evening papers” and “semiofficial papers” began to challenge the previously existing official papers.

The internet and international media sources such as the CNN, BBC and Newsweek magazine become available to Chinese people after the government decided to open up China to the world in the late 1980s. The world information sources are very competitive with China’s local television, print media and radio broadcasting.

From 1990s till now, The majority of the Chinese media have become increasingly market oriented. The media serve as an instrument of economic development and social modernization  instead of the party and government cheerleader. Even though, the China Communist Party still have the monopoly over political power, which means, of course the CCP still can control the mass media. The department of propaganda has the authority to give editorial guidelines for all the media and to dismiss new media organization personnel. The local branches of Central propaganda consisted with all levels which assure domination of the content of mass media in detail. News media must strictly follow the party guide line to produce their programs and make media policies and directives. They must also subordinate to government leadership and stick to its organizational principles and press policies .

Newspaper transformed from the original business model that is make money from subscription of audience to charge advertisers. From the beginning of decline in readership in the 1980s, newspaper started to cut cost to be more profitable. The market domination of newspaper became complicated in the internet age. New technology brought great shock to newspaper and forced innovation of newspapers. News organization has to deal with financial constraints. Newspaper companies have to go into the internet market. It is important to know how newspaper’s influence contribute to its web presence. It is important for newspaper to extent its influence into brand value and web product.

New technology of mobile and internet changed news industry in many aspects. All the readings emphasized on the economic problems that new technology brought to new industry. How to survive in online market is vital for the future of news industry. The influence of a news company decided the value of a news company. News information is easy to be shared on line. Most people will try their best to find free information. Traditional news industry is still looking for better solutions for revenue model.

One of the reasons for the prominent of entertainment news  is as a consequence of changing markets. Journalists and news editors are motivated by the profits made from entertainment news to give more news coverage for entertainment, soft news and hype. The other factor for decline in quality journalism is the media’s tendency to pander perceived wants of audience. Further more, the decline of factual hard news has been a result of economic, political, cultural trends in the media and the society at large.

Another reason is that media choices makes it easier for people to find their preferred content and the content preference become a better predictor of knowledge and turnout as media choice increases. Content preference can also be a reason of decline in hard news. Digital technology provided more choices for audience and promoted the efficiency of choosing. More and more audience preferred entertainment news to political and factual hard news, so that it will widen gaps in political knowledge and turnout.

Congratulations Joel you have now graduated from the University of Web with a degree in Citizen Journalism… My mum’s going to be so proud

In the past it would not have been my job or possibly right to tell a story so that ANYONE could see it, this would be due to my qualifications. In an age where the kids are called anti-social it’s funny how much socialising actually goes on. People just mention a topic and then others can contribute and expand on what it is they feel about a topic forming a collective intelligence. There have been several cases recently on Facebook where customers of stores write into these stores with a story and this is presented on Facebook. If these stories are interesting which many are then they go viral… so here is a person with no journalism qualification getting their story read by millions!

A 21 year old American girl, Casey Sasser wrote up a story about her act of kindness this received 79000 likes and 2000 shares which would mean it got a large amount of views around the world!

Let me repeat she is NOT a journalist!!!

A problem that does occur with stories such as this one, which are not filtered and no authority has read over it is how do we know that it is true? This shouldn’t be such a big issue, let’s be honest there are still lies in the newspaper and that goes through a process of review and publishing .

The Newspapers main tactic isn’t to make citizen journalists look like liars, no they have a much harder job, they have to ‘stop the audience being publishers.’ Even Mr Newspaper himself, Rupert Murdoch, knows that the Newspaper is a dying breed.

There are still some optimistic journalists such as Andrew Marr a BBC political presenter that thinks citizen journalism “is not going to replace journalism” and I say good luck to that. Jay Rosen on the other hand believes that Journalists are ‘not a special class’

It will be extremely interesting over the next few years or decades to see how the saga of open versus closed pans out!

That’s reportedly the fatal fertilizer explosion, a terrible scene where the fatalities are climbing high, dozens of houses are reportedly destroyed and it is only going to get worse as the full scope of this tragedy is realized.

First: If you’re shooting on an iPhone, hold it sideways. You’re welcome.

Second: This fertilizer plant was in West, Texas, which is a small town of almost 2,900 people. It is 20 miles north of Waco, Texas. If you hear or read reporters talking about the explosion in Waco you know they haven’t spent 45 seconds verifying these two tidbits of information.

Finally: Check this out. Redditors are crowdsourcing details in this Googlemap:

Great details there. You’ll find a lot of information as it is being reported, released and discovered.

The other side of the wall – Post industrial journalism

“Journalism is dead” sounds to me like “Meat is murder”. You don’t have to think deeply about it to shout it from the back of a galloping high-horse.

All 15-minute famous mantras roll so nicely off the tongue, but smash into a million pieces when they reach the tiles.

Journalism isn’t dead, it’s got the flu. It’s a problem with digestion.

The idea that we are all smiling, giggling news studios has cemented around the feet of editors around the world – especially those who still have a job. To avoid sleeping with the fishes, they know they have to learn to tread water like a pro. Because, after all, they are pros.

For the moment, we’re just learning how to use our new toys. The news media is learning how to pick them up after we’re done playing with them.

The state of journalism might be changing from how it looked 10 years ago. Hell, it’s different to how it looked 5 years ago. And while we’re at it, it does look a little greener than it did when I woke up this morning. That’s because it’s in a state of transformation. Like a phoenix on the brink of death, it will soon be back with a vengeance, a force firing harder, better, fast, stronger.

Citizen journalism has been shown to have the ability to break news, but on a whole it can’t replace that journalistic je ne sais quoi, that deeper level of analysis that has long been the definition of good journalism.

We’re not journalists. We’re hyperconfident children. We’re citizens.

In much the same way as I can’t make a citizen’s arrest with a taser gun and a whacking stick, most citizen journalists don’t have the tools necessary to break stories at a professional level. The sources, the understanding of industry techniques, the exposure, the credibility; the journalism industry can’t ever really die.

In short, the skills to pay the bills.

The trouble with it all is that someone working for The Washington Post has to jump through half a dozen rings of fire and ice before their words hit the ground running. All a blogger has to do is hit publish. Most of the time what comes out is of a standard that would get a journalist fired.

A dangerous lack of quality control can spell disaster, unless people understand the rules of engagement.

And while we sit and bitch about media ownership, and it’s reliance on fear and conservative hegemony, blogging is also guided by the invisible hand of the majority. Replace the word ‘sales’ with the word ‘clicks’.

Boom.

People have as much of a hunger for news today as they did at any point throughout history. Arguably more so, with the prevalence of new digital media platforms. It’s just can’t be reflected in newspaper subscriptions.

The appetite for what’s going on around the world isn’t going away. This is where journalism steps in, and in this realm the blogosphere can only reach so high; we can only crank our necks upward and gasp at the sheer horror of it all.

The most significant aspect of this is how the traditional concept of ‘the audience’ doesn’t even come close to reflecting what it means today. Previously, we had no choice but to be the audience, now we’re the ‘active audience’. There is no need to hire a crack team of market analysts to determine what content people want to see.

Source:
Audience photo

Hard-hitting journalism from Fox News

This leads to blogs, comments, forums, pages and more on the Internet where normal people can write about the news, their opinions, stories etc. What do we have now? Citizen journalism!!

I have been involved with citizen journalism lately with this blogging project, but there are dedicated and passionate people out there that write consistently to an audience they have earned. Or they are people that just want to share their thoughts.

To write this blog I started researching citizen journalism stories (originally procrastination, but it turned out useful!) Sure sometimes you come across silly ones, but then you may come across really interesting people. New perspectives and different stories that are not normally told to us by Professional journalism. Have a look at some stories on the 3rd annual CNN iReport awards. A wide variety of photos, articles and videos uploaded to the net. This variety really helps the popularity of citizen journalism, as people can search specific topics that interest them most. Another appealing aspect is that readers can comment on people’s work, it is more conversational and people these days can relate more to this style.

These are just some of the points that make citizen journalism so good, and why professional journalism is becoming quite threatened by it. What do you think? If you know any interesting bloggers or youtube channels by citizen journalists, please comment, I’d like to read them!

Tara.

Image from http://news.anu.edu.au/?attachment_id=10291