The 11 layers of citizen journalism, and that's just the beginning.

Steve Outing presents some interesting facets of citizen journalism in his article, "The 11 layers of citizen journalism." Media are now a two-way street, and with internet and blogs around it can't be denied that the line between citizen and journalist is blurred. 

Among the most interesting of Outing's article was the fifth part in which he writes about a reader blog-ombudsman hybrid. An ombudsman is someone independent of the newspaper who criticizes and commentates on content, in attempts to keep a check on the paper's ethics. Anyway, I found it interesting because most media websites have some way or other for readers to make comments in response to stories, but there's often no way to critique the paper as a whole. That's where a reader-blog would come in handy. Of course, there'd still ideally be some editorial control over it, just to make sure comments are moderated and no one is libeled, but otherwise it should be fair game for readers. 

I wonder how familiar readers are with ombudsmen. It speaks mountains of the organization if it's willing to openly accept critique; it shows that outlet is listening and wants to know what the public thinks, what should change about its reporting. Allowing comments to be posted on stories is one thing, but I don't think that goes far enough.

For it to work properly, the media outlet could select a few ombudsmen from different areas -- maybe experts in education, government, criminology, etc -- and have them critique stories and write commentary, spurring reader comments. I don't know if it would be a good idea allowing Joe Citizen access to post his own full-length blog, but what about taking a look at some of the social networking sites and adopting their use of "walls", encouraging users to give feedback.

Another interesting aspect of citizen journalism that Outing presents is the hyper-local reporting. I don't think traditional journalism will ever die ( I mean, can you honestly replace the sweet feeling of waking up to a Sunday paper and browsing each section, sipping your coffee and munching donuts? Kindle, you have nothing on the paper copy.) In that regard, as buy-outs and mergers threat traditional journalism, it forces us to be more selective in what we cover, since there are less pro journalists, and newsworthy events go uncovered. So, we have to utilize technology to the max. The school board meeting might not take priority, even though it's important, and it affects many people, but the journalist is busy elsewhere, so why not ask faithful readers to volunteer and cover the meeting? For example, I interned last summer at the Austin Post Bulletin, and I went to a city council meeting in which one of the issues was a proposed expansion of a vet clinic, but the land was needed for flood mitigation. That story never made it on the pages. To Joe Reader, he'd say, "Why do I care that this is printed in the paper? This only affects that neighborhood." But still...that's an entire neighborhood. This type of hyper-local journalism borders on community newsletters, but hey, it's news, and it affects people, and things like these can cost taxpayers money. This is where dedicating blogs and assigning a few citizens in each quadrant to cover what goes on, would be greatly beneficial and of interest to those readers. The world is becoming more globalized, but at the same time, as a result, we crave "more local," in the mess of mass media. 

***

Besides the facets Outing presents -- of which I agree with most of them -- there are many he left out. The article was written three years ago, but if he were to rewrite / update it, it might be called the 29 layers of citizen journalism. Ok, maybe not that many (or maybe even more??!), but here's what he might've included:

1. YouTube. You might've heard of it. This has revolutionized how we watch videos. The traditional tube has eroded and we depend more on viral videos for our news, entertainment, information, class lectures (you can attend U of Berkeley free!) Anyway, what YouTube does for citizen journalism is it lets any Joe Schmoe take a video of whatever, and post it online at the disposal of millions (billions?) of potential viewers. YouTube is to owning your own TV station as blogs are to owning your own newspaper. True, you don't need YT to post videos, but no other site has been so popular, accessible and centralized as YT, effectively putting you in contact with more viewers than all of the Superbowl shows combined. Want to start a group that broadcasts twice-monthly firefighter meetings in Taopi so that the rest of the 89 inhabitants of the town can see what motions are passed and find out which avenues will get new reflector signs? Easy as pie. 

2. Social networking sites. Whereas news organizations depended on exclusive databases to get their contact information for sources, they now have an insanely amazing tool to reach millions of people, especially youth and college students. Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, etc., are places you can get phone numbers, emails, interests, hobbies, religious/sexual/political preferences, etc. etc. -- basically, phonebooks, directories, databases, etc., combined into one centralized location, and Joe Citizen Journalist now has access to potentially millions of sources. I've used facebook for stories -- not necessarily for writing -- but for reporting, for finding sources and getting contact info that's unavailable elsewhere. At the same time, social networking is dangerous to citizen journalism, as anyone can make a forum, post something as if it were factual, and -- get this -- news organizations actually quote what is written as fact. Case in point: someone posted an account of what hapepned the day Rissa Amen-Reif died, and media cited the events as if they were true. Dangerous.

3. Cell phones. Most cell phones come with cameras, and this allows Joe C. Journalist to possibly take real-time video of news events. During the Virginia Tech shooting, students used their camera phones to record the action. And with broadband / wifi networking, it becomes even easier to transmit that video to a blog, post it, perhaps beating even the 4 big TV stations. 

&&&

Those are only a few of the layers of citizen journalism; I can think of a few more, but those are probably the most important since Outing wrote his article. What have you got, Journalism U'ers ??