ALJ301 reactions, thoughts and musings

This week I read Stephen and Deirdre Quinn’s article ‘User-generated content and the changing news cycle’ (Australian Journalism Review, volume 28, number 1, pp.57–70).

It touched on “citizen” or “grassroots” journalists: ordinary who make their photos, video and audio available to the wider public.

YouTube video: “Citizen Journalism – What Is It?“

This can be a handy form of news breaking during extraordinary events because it gives the public an insider account of the action (think of the Qantas air disaster passenger footage). It effectively means journalists are everywhere.

There’s a second positive to user-generated content: journalists can use these news gatherers for future stories. It’s a huge bonus because finding witnesses and victims for the first-hand-account story is often difficult. And these golden news sources often come to us!

Of course, there are downsides. Checking the accuracy of the account may be difficult in some cases or legal issues may arise. And peer written and reviewed sites, like Wikipedia, are intrinsically dangerous when it comes to being factual, credible and truthful. But consumers are generally aware of this and many use Wikipedia as a first point of call to get the basic idea and research on from there.

The main problem I see – and it’s a major issue with all new media – is how to make money. How will advertising work in this format? Because without traditional news outlets creating revenue to fund blogs, podcasts and vlogs, can the industry continue to pay top quality journalists?

– Koren