User Generated Content: The death knell for professional journalism?

Make no mistake. Those who aspire to join the ranks of today’s professional media face many challenges. From the mastering of pyramids (inverted or otherwise) to the networking of contacts, would-be professionals have a lot to learn. Underpinning everything is a strict journalistic code, adhered to by journos with a diligence that often borders on fanaticism. As if this were not demanding enough, a new challenge to the professional hack has been steadily gaining ground over the last decade.
 
This challenger often has no formal training and, more often than not, doesn’t even bother paying lip service to the ethics of the trade. Whether we refer to these challengers as “citizen journalists”, “bloggers” or “egotistical wannabes”, it’s clear that the output they’re producing a.k.a User Generated Content (UGC), is reshaping the modern media.
 
Dan Gillmor, often cited as the pioneer of citizen journalism, neatly summarises the new climate: “In a world of ubiquitous media tools, which is almost here, someone will be on the spot every time.”
 
Indeed, there have been numerous examples over the last few years that appear to validate this statement. From the mobile phone video footage of the Buncefield fuel depot fire,to the live blogs of students caught-up in the Virginia Tech Massacre, professional journalists can no longer assume first dibs on the breaking of news events. Members of the public are increasingly able to produce news for themselves and others, thus circumventing the professional media entirely.
 
It could be argued that a shift in the balance of power can only be regarded as a good thing. Consecutive MORI polls reveal journalism to be one of the least trusted professions amongst the general public, and the rise of UGC might well represent both a symptom and response to this trend.
 
With individuals now able to produce the content they once passively consumed, news stories can now be gleaned from a variety of web-based sources, other than the traditional media outlets. Since it is unable to compete with the 24/7 ubiquity of citizen journalism, the professional press can only but respond by increasing the fastidiousness of it’s own reporting. In this scenario, theoretically, everyone’s a winner.
 
The problem of course is that much of what constitutes UGC is often unbalanced, unsubstantiated, unethical or simply untrue. CNN, in its attempts to embrace the media revolution, has had to learn the hard way, with its ireport website often falling prey to UGC hoaxes.
 
Furthermore, irrespective of public opinion, professional journalists are required to conform to guidelines and operate within a strict ethical framework. This may yet prove to be the professional journalist’s main trump card: a dependable level of veracity and accuracy that is far from de rigueur in the world of UGC.
 
Whilst it’s doubtful that digital democratisation and UGC alone signal the end of professional journalism, the latter has had no choice but to accept former and accommodate it as best it can. Ultimately, the freedom of expression that UGC affords, if successfully counterbalanced by the regulated press, could arguably be the ideal medium for modern society.  

 

 

To Blog or not to Blog?

Last week’s introductory lecture in online journalism, and the impact technology has and is having on the industry, provided much food for thought. Legend has it that during the 1980s the then Sun editor, Kelvin McKenzie, suggested that, one day, the only people that would count for anything in society would be “the journalists”.

Two decades on, and the swaggering tone of McKenzie’s prognostics appear wholly misplaced. The rise of the Internet and the advent of web 2.0, have thrown the traditional media into utter disarray. RSS feeds, youtube and, above all, blogging have conspired to emancipate the public from its dependence on the established media. This newfound empowerment culminated in Time magazine bestowing bloggers with the coveted “Person of the year” award 2006. Could it be that the digital revolution may one day attain a historical significance comparable to that of the Guttenberg press?

Unsurprisingly, the process of “media democratisation” has aroused much consternation amongst the ranks of professional journalists, many of whom hold nothing but distain for this perceived amateurism. Whilst these so-called “citizen journalists” may possess a platform, very often they do not have the credentials supposedly required to validate their opinions. Admittedly, a lot of what is posted online can veer from trite musings to semi-deranged polemics, but to dismiss all blogs in this fashion would be short sighted.

Since anyone with access to a computer and the Internet can start a blog, the potential for a blogger to be in the right place at the right time is considerable. At the beginning of the Iraq war, the Guardian began profiling the postings of a Baghdad based blogger under the pseudonym “Salam Pax”.

Although not a professional journalist, Pax was able to continue updating the outside world as to the day-to-day realities of living in post-war Iraq, long after western correspondents had been forced behind the walls of the Green-Zone.

By contrast, some blogs have aroused great attention for all the wrong reasons. A Church of England clergyman was recently shown to have aired some rather unsavoury views on his personal blog causing sizeable public repercussions. Whilst an isolated incident such as this is unlikely to cause irreparable harm, it none the less illustrates the power of blogging, and the caution that should be employed when engaging in it.

The conclusion I have reached since my initiation into the online realm is that the professional journalist no longer holds carte blanche on the dissemination of information and the setting of news agendas. The only existing certainty now open to aspiring journos such as myself is that the profession/ trade is going to have to undergo a transformation of seismic proportions, and we’d better be ready for it!