A New Beginning
Citizen journalists have to remember something crucial; they are the people and often are better placed to act as their tribune than politicians. However, this does not mean an abrogation of ethics or that self-aggrandizing should be raison d’être of citizen journalism. Indeed, it should be guided to be the tribune of the people and not to work in opposition to existing news media but partner with it. A complex relationship exists between the three parties but in principle they have more in common than they do with the state.
State bodies and existing media have one advantage over citizen journalist’s; namely, organization. Citizen journalist’s spread themselves across different sites and contact between them is minimal and confined to the social and the discursive. Organizations like Reporters without Borders do an admirable job of fighting for press freedom and defending citizen journalists under that remit. A more effective organization would be web-based and transnational by nature, and specifically seek to represent the interests of citizen journalists in their various states and on the world-stage? It would have to be voluntary by nature but seek to establish both a guiding ethos for citizen journalism and would spearhead the response of citizen journalism to the increasing hostility of state organizations.
The formation of such an organization is long overdue.
Article comments
1 - Raoul
Thanks Darrell, great article! That new French law is pretty inane, but then most laws passed by politicians without real input from the public are either inane or inadequate.
2 - gette
I am currently reading a biography of H.P. Lovecraft, who, in addition to writing short stories, was an "amateur journalist." He wrote for several publications and was part of a community of peers. We are part of a long tradition and deserve the same rights afforded paid journalists, as we share the same intention to document the facts of the world around us.
Nice writing, by the way!
3 - STM
What happened to his First Amendment rights? Disgraceful, really, that this is happening in the United States. Even if he is not working for a news organisation, it's not up to a court to decide whether he's a journalist or not. That rests on Wolf's say so - and if he can prove he's writing and reporting, regardless of the medium, he's a journalist.
I wonder if TV and radio reporters were regarded the same way when the elctronic media began to make inroads into the mass markets of newspapers and journals?