An InfoWorld writer blogged about the potential problems that could arise from the growth in “citizen journalism,” but the real problems come from elsewhere.
Ephraim Schwartz doesn’t really have much to worry about, despite the title of his post, “Will citizen journalism put me out of a job?”
The answer’s probably no, and Schwartz even admits that. The issue with his “what if” post isn’t the future it speculates could happen, but the reality that some of it is taking place today.
Schwartz probably didn’t mean for his post to be an apt commentary on journalism in general. A few passages he wrote bear some further consideration. Let’s start here:
Imagine an online so-called “newspaper” that has as its staff only blogging citizen journalists who have an interest in the subject matter they write about.
After all, doesn’t a software engineer know more about metadata, the enterprise service bus, and master data management than some reporter with a BA or MA in journalism and a minor in English Lit?
Yes, they do know more technically. However, unlike reporters who view remaining neutral as the golden rule of journalism, tech experts often have an ax to grind and a point of view to promote.
Qualifications and labels aside, how many reporters do truly remain neutral? In Murdok’ home base of Central Kentucky, the local paper, a Knight Ridder property for the time being, presents stories written by its reporters, columnists, and chosen syndication pieces that display a much different angle than those in the Wall Street Journal.
Bias exists. The problem isn’t that so few reporters resist it, but that so many let it into their work. Editors and publishers act as enablers for one simple reason: neutrality doesn’t grab eyeballs or boost circulation figures. And that’s a shame.
Schwartz also wrote: The result is that the reader, if diligent, would have to become the reporter sorting out fact from fiction. In other words doing the job reporters were hired to do.
Again, that problem exists now. It’s not on the horizon, unless you count tomorrow’s sunrise. Read the Washington Post and the Washington Times for a couple of weeks. You’ll find more of the truth on a topic than by reading one news site or the other exclusively.
Schwartz sees the threat this way: I am worried about an attitude that has less and less respect for what journalists are supposed to do and instead is willing to accept one side of the story because it is coming from a regular guy, a citizen, a blogger, just like you and me.
Reporters are like you and me. Similar desires, similar flaws. The rush to embrace sensationalism, which is most responsible for wrecking respect for the media, didn’t start yesterday. The term “yellow journalism” has existed for over a century.
Citizen journalism may not be the panacea for the problems in journalism today. It has served to make journalists more honest as it exposes genuine problems with purported new stories; the end of Dan Rather’s career is a notable example.
If people like Schwartz or myself, or anyone else who gets paid to write in the US loses a job, it won’t be due to the rise of citizen journalism. We write a lot about tech jobs being outsourced, but a reader wrote to me a few months ago to point out that Reuters was sending writing jobs to India.
Content creation has always been viewed as a commodity. Citizen journalism doesn’t pose a threat, but a challenge to rise above, instead. Only a defeatist will worry about it too much; the rest of us will keep on writing and strive to stay ahead.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
