Citizen Journalism and Credibility
I’m in the session of Beyond Broadcast: Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture dealing with citizen journalism and credibility. Dan Gillmor is moderating the discussion. I don’t think we’re webcasting, but someone might be recording audio to post online later. A woman is taking live notes on the session wiki. (Using a wiki for live notes and encouraging everyone in the session add to it creates a lot of edit conflicts.)
Some highlights:
- A journalist brings credibility from his/her media organization to the table. Citizen journalists don’t necessarily have that in the same way.
- How does anonymity work with citizen journalism?
- Lisa Williams of H2Otown doesn’t want people to trust her too soon. She wants people to approach her source critically. She wants people to think for themselves. She doesn’t hide her identity and has actually found news tips under the windshield wipers of her car.
- Although this blog probably isn’t citizen journalism, is it fair to say that sections of it are? Is my reporting of something I attended citizen journalism?
- What about accidental journalism? Is the Zapruder film journalism, citizen journalism, just a home movie that captured one of this country’s most important events of the 1960s?
