INQ7.net is doing a speical report on "citizen journalism," and I along with other people who blogs in Asia appeared in the second installment.
I really like it coz Leo quoted me saying my constant mantra, "I am not a blogger, I am a person who happens to have a blog."
I mean, I really hate that my identity has somehow morphed because I have a blog. My life is so much bigger than that.
iBlog, iPodcast: Citizen journalism using tech
SPECIAL REPORT
iBlog, iPodcast: Citizen journalism using tech
First posted 10:39pm (Mla time) Mar 12, 2006
By Leo Magno
INQ7.net
(Continued from last week)
AS we discuss blogs and podcasting, other terms like “citizen
journalism” and “grassroots journalism” inevitably crop up. Dan Gillmor
who left the San Jose Mercury News in late 2004 to pursue his passion
for “citizen media,” defined the term as “the idea that anyone with
something to say could use increasingly powerful and decreasingly
expensive tools to say it, potentially for a global audience.”
We are
seeing ordinary citizens reaching out to millions without the need to
operate or buy air time from broadcasting stations. We are seeing them
create electronic magazines without the need to operate a printing
press. With inexpensive tools using a computer and an Internet
connection, these citizens are becoming publishers and broadcasters
themselves.
So the questions now arise: Will inexpensive alternative media like blogs and podcasts pave the way
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for grassroots or citizen journalism to finally
flourish? What brought about this movement into grassroots new media
publishing? What are the technologies and concepts involved? How will
these affect media as we know it?
Poynter
Institute senior editor Steve Outing said that new media such as blogs
are key tools for aspiring citizen journalists. He said a “great way to
get citizens involved in news…is to simply invite them to blog for it.
A number of news sites do this now, and some citizen blogs are
consistently interesting reads.”
The Poynter Institute calls
itself a “school for journalists, future journalists and teachers of
journalists.” The institute has been issuing guidelines on how
traditional media could more easily accommodate advances in media
technologies like blogging and podcasting and use them to gather views
from the grassroots.
“Blogging started out as an everyman
phenomenon (and now, it seems, almost everyone has a blog), but then
professional journalists took up the form, too. But the real promise of
blogs remains with the non-journalists, for whom blogging has given a
powerful and inexpensive publishing tool to reach out to the world with
their stories and thoughts,” Outing said.
However, blogging and
podcasting are still budding technologies, which makes it even more
interesting why government and corporate entities want to nip them in
the bud. Ronald Meinardus, resident representative of the Friedrich
Naumann Foundation in the Philippines and a commentator on Asian
affairs, said there are about 24 million blogs and 20,000 podcasts out
there.
Meinardus calls them “digital grassroots communicators”
and that “real political power and influence is now being wielded
through online communities comprising millions of people.”
The
Friedrich Naumann Foundation proclaims that it is dedicated to
liberalism, where key ingredients are individual freedom and active
participation of citizens to become aware of their rights. With its own
podcast it is encouraging individuals to join the public sphere using technology.
“As
with weblogs, the great majority of podcasts are produced and hosted in
North America,” said Meinardus. “This approach — which shrinks the gap
between creator and consumer — poses a major challenge for traditional
media companies, which are increasingly having a hard time attracting
the young generation. Instead of reading newspapers or arranging their
schedules around TV shows, more and more young people in advanced
societies are flocking to so-called online communities.”
So here
we see digital and personal counterparts of the print medium with
blogs, and a digital and personal counterpart of TV and radio with
podcasts. Whereas before, the cost of printing and publishing news was
prohibitive, individual citizens are now blogging their own news and
views. Whereas before, the cost of broadcasting your own radio or TV
show was prohibitive or nigh-impossible, individual citizens can now
podcast. This development is changing not only the face but also the
very definition of the word “media.” We are moving into personalized
content produced by the end-users themselves and into newer forms of
media, and some of these are becoming influential.
“We’re seeing
a shift from mass media to ‘my media’ where the user is the programmer
and creator of content. Consumers are becoming the producers of
content,” said Yahoo! Inc. chairman and CEO Terry Semel in an interview
at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Semel
recalled an incident when a series of coordinated suicide bombings
occurred in the streets of London on July 7, 2005. This, he said,
showed that “citizen journalism was really alive and well.”
“People
right there in the middle of the action started taking photos from
their cell phones and giving updates on their blogs,” he said. “These
updates from professional journalists and even just plain old
bystanders became available almost immediately. Some photo updates were
even posted on their blogs faster than the news networks.”
Such
content is called “tail content or user-generated content,” where tens
of thousands of consumers generate information for niche markets to
form a long line of “de-massified” content. De-massified content refers
to information that is tailored for or targeted at specific individuals
as opposed to having just one message being broadcast to a mass
audience base.
During a media technology roundtable in Sydney,
Australia, next-generation futurist and strategic media analyst Andrew
Zolli echoed what Semel said.
“The distinction between who is the
consumer and who is the producer of information is dissolving in the
participation economy,” the New York executive said. “There is a shift
from people seeing themselves as information consumers to participants
and we will see this social change transform media. These people are
now becoming ‘professional amateurs.’ In the 19th century an ‘amateur’
was defined as a person who does something out of love or devotion
while back then a ‘professional’ was someone who does it for money.
These people will increasingly participate online and change many
economies, not just that of media.”
At the same media roundtable
in Sydney, Mauro Montanaro, vice president for multimedia of Nokia,
gave an even more extreme view on new media and traditional media.
“This
is the death of journalism as we know it,” he said. “During the Afghan
war 10 years ago people with big, clunky videophones sent reports back
to their newsrooms. Today you can do that with a cell phone. During the
Paris riots, people were taking pictures and blogging using their cell
phones. Today it’s the immediacy of the news that matters. People’s
attention spans are getting shorter, so content is also getting shorter
and more straight-to-the-point.”
Earlier, the analogy between
blogs and the print medium and podcasts with broadcasting was made. The
prohibitive costs of printing and broadcasting, new media advocates
say, have all but disappeared. Now anyone can be a reporter and editor
or a broadcast announcer and producer at the same time.
New media
users like Ooi even present more provocative views — that the
incumbency of traditional journalists is being challenged by new media
producers who have no background in the field of journalism.
“When
it comes to opinion, it’s the senior editor who calls the shots,” said
Ooi. “But now, anybody who has a tiny inkling of how to use the
technology can share their opinion. This is where the incumbency of
journalists has been challenged. You have serious bloggers who blog
ahead of news and have strong interactive mechanisms with learned and
informed people. I think that is where the entire domain which used to
belong to journalists starts to collapse or is being eroded.”
This
statement obviously would not sit well with journalists in traditional
media. Although many professional journalists have already embraced
blogging and podcasting, others are more prudent in making the
conclusion that ordinary citizens would, indeed, become tomorrow’s
journalists. The sticking point: Accuracy.
“As a person who once
studied statistics, I would always look at the validity of the facts
presented by the bloggers and podcasters. It can be a viable source of
information, but corroboration is necessary,” said Zatni Arbi, reporter
of The Jakarta Post.
As with traditional media, accuracy has
always been the focal point of journalism. Arbi said one benefit that
could be derived from the emergence of citizen journalists using new
media is that readers would learn to be more discerning when it comes
to accepting information from any source.
Inevitably, the question of accuracy gives birth to more issues like credibility.
“I
believe the market will determine the credibility of the bloggers and
podcasters,” he said. “In this case, it is not much different from the
traditional media. The good thing about the Internet and the new media
is that they teach people to be more critical in what they read, and to
add a grain of salt in the dish.”
Radio and television show producer and host Jerry Liao agreed.
“Credibility
will come into play,” said Liao. “If the blogs, podcasts and videocasts
will be done by news organizations or prominent personalities, then
readers will accept them as reliable. But by saying that, you can
expect readers and listeners will still verify the story from
legitimate news sources that they have relied upon for a long time.”
Liao
added that most respected journalists and news organizations worked for
years to earn the credibility they enjoy today. No matter how fast
technology facilitates media production, he said, credibility is not
something that is built overnight.
“The make or break of informal
reports will again depend on the credibility of the writer and its
content,” Liao said. “Becoming a viable source of info does not come
overnight. Continuous availability of reliable info will be critical.
Having one or two good stories won’t do it.”
Another TV journalist, this time from Indonesia, agreed with Liao.
“Most
people who use the Internet are educated people. I guess they will not
easily believe in everything they read on the Internet especially in
blogs that are owned by somebody they don’t even know. They will
cross-check the information from a reputable source. The story of a
blogger who has no journalistic training will not get a reader,” said
Indra Prawira of MetroTV PT Media Televisi Indonesia.
Prawira does not believe individual bloggers and podcasters will become part of the mainstream in the future.
“In
Indonesia? I don’t think so,” he said. “Even the Internet is not well
recognized here. Globally? Could be. We need other sources to get
confirmation of what the blog tells us. We Indonesian people hardly
consider blogs or even the Internet as a source of information.”
And with credibility, the question of accountability in new media also arises.
“New
media, to me, offers a wider choice to the consumers of information,
but there is no one to be held responsible for the validity of the
content,” said The Jakarta Post’s Arbi.
This, he said, even emphasizes the need for editors to be on top of the information flow.
“Because
there is no board of editors to hold responsible for the content that a
citizen journalist offers, it is easier to challenge him,” said Arbi
the reporter.
Shawn Chung, editor-in-chief of T3 Singapore, said ethics set journalists apart from bloggers.
“Journalism
training is not about how to write the proper prose, how to report an
incident using the 5W method, how to construct an article using the
pyramid system of priority,” he said. “It’s also about proper ethics
and guidelines. Bloggers feel that they can get away with infantile
slander, hearsay, etc. They are simply unprofessional as journalists,
and a lot of them don’t want to adopt proper procedures.”
Chung,
who does not see blogs and podcasts becoming part of mainstream media
in the next five years, added that bloggers in Singapore are “immature.”
“From
the Singapore experience, bloggers here are naive in the sense that
they feel empowered to post what they want, when they want,” he said.
“I think these new forms of media have very narrow focuses, and very
narrow agendas behind them. This is not citizen journalism. If so, it’s
a very yellow form of citizen journalism, with few exceptions. It’s
proven that in the Singapore experience, bloggers here are too immature
to even attempt to rival mainstream journalism.”
Accuracy,
credibility and accountability. How would bloggers and podcasters
satisfy these prerequisites of becoming a reliable source of
information? Do bloggers and podcasters see themselves as journalists
at all?
A man who sits on both sides of the fence is Eddie
Ilarde. A radio and television announcer before he became a Philippine
senator, Ilarde has experienced a renaissance of sorts. He is a pioneer
radio announcer and a lifetime achievement awardee for both radio and
television. And at 71, Ilarde has started podcasting,
so he knows how it is to be part of the traditional broadcasting system
and how to utilize the novel methods offered by new media.
The
veteran Ilarde, who became famous for his radio-turned-television
program called “Kahapon Lamang,” said new media reporters may have
something to offer that traditional ones do not. He said a stronger
sense of community among podcasters serves as a check-and-balance
mechanism for podcasts.
“Yes, any Tom, Dick and Harry can do this
(podcasting), but only those who talk sense will survive,” Ilarde said.
“There are millions of people broadcasting on the Internet, and this is
good and bad at the same time. It’s not a direct broadcast. Podcasts
can be accessed by those who want to hear the podcast. And people on
the Internet can check each other. Listeners are podcasters and
podcasters are listeners; they check and balance each other.”
Ilarde
added that the professional rat race in media and the constant goal to
top the competition may cause professional journalists to stray from
the service-oriented job they are supposed to perform.
“Newscasters
are already paid,” he said. “They are paid to do what they do. Amateurs
are there to give you information because of passion to do it. They are
not professionals but for all you know they could be better than us.”
This
brings to mind what future media analyst Zolli said about amateurs and
professionals, that bloggers and podcasters are now becoming
“professional amateurs.”
“Podcasts are not being broadcast by big
networks like BBC or CNN or any other network. That is the point,”
Ilarde said. “[Podcasters] are accountable to their listeners. But when
you have a radio or TV host, a so-called journalist being paid by a big
network company who does not do his homework — that’s a lot worse.”
Hong
Kong blogger Yan Sham-Shackleton said most of her entries are
commentary in nature, but that she does go through the usual
fact-checking procedure. She also believes there is a middle ground
between the emerging new media and the traditional media, that blogs
are not owned by any particular group of people and that in new media,
typecasting and arbitrary labeling should be avoided. Yan
Sham-Shackleton’s blog is banned in mainland China for her continuing
comments on the Tiananmen massacre.
“I don’t think you need to
have formal training to be a journalist,” she said. “But you do need to
have some sort of experience working with newspapers or magazines. What
I do now in Glutter has no resemblance with what it is like to be a
reporter or an editor. Reporting and being an editor is a skill set,
you have to learn it and earn it. With this new technology, anyone can
comment and report on events. They can be primary sources of
information, they can be eyewitnesses, they can with a click of a
button allow a lot of people to come and read their thoughts. But not
everyone is a reporter. That said, anyone can own a blog so reporters
can as well. Reporters can own a blog but not all blog owners are
reporters.”
Yan also encourages readers to be more discerning about any information they get from the Internet.
Malaysian
blogger Jeff Ooi already has a sizeable following in his country, and
he attributes this to verifying anything he writes.
“Even though
I am not a named journalist or a trained journalist — I never was one
— I do follow the professional ethics of journalists,” Ooi said. “I
use multi-sourcing, I go for independent sources, and I follow that to
the ‘T’. That helped me get the reputation of having a high level of
integrity.”
However, inasmuch as Yan and Ooi admit that strictly
speaking they were never trained as journalists, even trained
journalists make mistakes. Wouldn’t it be more dangerous for
non-trained people to act as reporters?
Untrained journalists that they are, neither Yan nor Ooi claim to be journalists in the first place.
“I
am not a journalist, and most people with blogs are not either,” said
Yan. “Most blogs are more like a remote control. They simply lead other
people to what journalists have written. I see myself as a cultural
critic and writer than a reporter because I don’t seek new information
and then report it. On occasions I might talk about an event I
experienced but always from a first-person point of view. I don’t hide
behind any kind of objectivity, or even a certain political paradigm.
What I write is what I think, take it or leave it.”
Yan added: “I am not a blogger, I am a person who happens to have a blog.”
Ooi said something similar.
“Essentially
bloggers are not journalists,” he said. “They are not trained as one
but you are providing a grassroots perspective that would reflect the
aspirations of the masses, and it’s high time that the powers that be
take cognizance of these voices. So with that we have an expansion
whereby blogs will be an effective channel to project alternative
views, not necessarily dissenting views.”
For some podcasters,
the processes which journalists go through were all thrown at them
unwittingly until they realized that podcasting entailed journalistic
training on the job. They had to hit the ground running and then
realized the responsibility that goes with airing one’s views.
“It is interesting,” said Julian Yu, 44, producer of What’s up in Taiwan,
a podcast on news and issues in Taiwan. A lyricist for Mandarin pop
songs, Yu has no background in journalism. “When I started editing the
interviews for the first time, I felt like I was the censorship guy.
What should and shouldn’t I keep in the final cut? It bugged me for a
while, and then later I realized that I was my own censor! I put my
name there so I just do what I know, what I believe.”
Similarly, 24-year-old Josh, who podcasts weekly from the basement of his home in Japan, does not see himself as a journalist.
“I
do not consider myself a journalist,” said Josh, an active duty sailor
stationed at a coastal naval base in Japan. “My podcast is intended for
a very niche audience. Bloggers in general do have the power to
influence journalism, and some may be more qualified than today’s
average journalist. However, without the big daddy media backing, it’s
always going to be a hobby no matter how hard that blogger tries to
break into mainstream.”
(To be continued next week)
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 