(Page 1 of 1 pages for this article )

Thursday, October 02, 2008

The (Considerable) Downside To “Citizen Journalism”

Would you like a little nudity with your news?

This article from Advertising Age describes a slight downside to the trend of “citizen journalism.” (And if you follow the link, there is a picture that, if you click on it, is pretty NSFW.) It seems that since the release of the CBSEyeMobile app for the iPhone, the standards of what is considered “journalism” seem to have slipped a bit.  That is to say, user-generated porn clips are becoming more common among all the other user-generated content. 

Jeez, who woulda seen that coming?  The nice thing about real, paid journalists is that if they engage in shenanigans like that, you can fire them.  But “citizens” just need a new IP address, alias and user account to continue to pollute your brand.  And since perception is truth, the damage, once done, can be incredibly hard to undo.

(Page 1 of 1 pages for this article )

TV news has had a moving line for a long time now. Much of local news is really just infotainment. Blame the business of news journalism itself for not defining absolute boundaries for what is and what is not newsworthy.

Posted by DanConklin  on  10/03  at  07:21 AM

---

Yeah, but at least there is some basic accountability there, which citizen journalism experiments generally lack. For example, Apple lost 4.5 stock points as a result of this story yesterday: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=atekONWyM7As&refer=worldwide

Posted by Isaac  on  10/04  at  08:52 PM

---

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Submit the word you see below: