Citizen Journalism: A Different Kind of News

Citizen journalism is different news.  I personally don’t think that citizen journalism has made news worse or better. I think it has brought a different perspective.  Citizen journalism is reporting based on experiences not ethical standards or practices that ideally should govern professional journalism.  

An example of initial amateur videos and photos transcending into citizen journalism based on what they unintentionally captured is the recent Boston Marathon bombings. 

In this What Amateur Footage Can Tell Us About Boston Marathon Bombing Article reporter Madeleine White, of the Globe and Mail,  interviews International Affairs and Security correspondent Paul Koring who states amateur footage could provide  clues about the explosions (flash, colour, size) as to the type of  device and potential suspects .

Another article written by Caitlin McGarry and Mark Sullivan details negative experiences with inaccuracies on social media like Twitter and wrong info being pushed. You can read their article here The Best Boston Marathon Video Was Shot By Amateurs 

Caitlin’s other article entitled Online Resources for Boston Marathon Explosions indicates professional journalists seemed more likely to report assistive resources and information in an emergency than their amateur counterparts, 

In the incidence of the 2011 Vancouver riot videos and images were initially posted to social media sites for all the wrong reasons and many became self-incriminating.  Some people had rude awakenings to social media etiquette, losing their jobs and/or facing criminal prosecution. What also happened was national shame in which people came forward and readily turned their videos and images over to law enforcement even before they were solicited to do so by police. 

Social Media and the 2011 Vancouver Riots is an interesting article on the event published by ArtsWire, an online source of news and views from the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia. In this article Nick Lewis interviews University of British Columbia Sociologist, Christopher Schneider.  Mr. Schneider studied the June 15, 2011 riot and co-authored two research papers, in addition to numerous talks and public lectures about the event, and wrote about it in a book titled Qualitative Media Analysis (2^nd edition), published by Sage Publications.

He discusses not only a comparative of the 1994 Vancouver riot reported by traditional journalists and news sources to the 2011 Vancouver riot crowdsourcing social media reporting but, also talks about the collective mindset of using social media in 2011 as a means of “recording of evidence”. Whereas the on the ground Boston Marathon experience was unintentional amateur journalism, the 2011 Vancouver riot had deliberate amateur journalists generating crowd-source policing or citizens policing citizens.

The commonality between the citizen journalism of the 2011 Vancouver riot and the Boston Marathon bombing is that citizens were collecting information in real time and spreading it globally faster than the police or journalists could. I think this speed of information is the cause of inaccuracies even in professional journalism which struggles to stay on the competitive delivery edge. It has become harder to contain…and to damage control. 

Treehugger author Chris Trackett wrote Exxon Controls Local Media Coverage Arkansas Oil Spill Citizen Journalists Use Guerrilla Reporting Tactics Should Pros Be Doing More posing interesting questions in scrutinizing an Exxon Mobile Oil spill when a Pegasus pipeline rupture spilled 84,000 gallons into a Mayflower,  Arkansas  street and possibly contaminating nearby Lake Conway.  The large corporate dollars and lawyer clout of Exxon and resulting environmental sensitivities limited the access of traditional news media.  Reporters were restricted and in some instances subjected to corporate intimidation. He provides an interesting video, photos and a transcript that details how citizen journalism was better able to report the circumstances than professional journalists. What resulted was a watchdog of citizen journalism using tools and social media to contradict Exxon before Exxon could control the information and before professional reporters understood the extent of the event. He points out in his article that citizen journalism is potentially personal and often raw footage.  The video evidence of oil flowing down an “anywhere” urban street in North America captures us because of its familiarity. The newsman in the provided video is reporting he doesn’t know if anyone has had to evacuate and that Exxon has said they would pay hotel expenses “if” anyone had to leave.  Ordinary citizens permitted us to see behind the corporate spin with images of an oil flooded backyard, oil flowing like a river between houses into a street or images of a pond turned black, evidenced on rubber gloves and pictures of affected wildlife. 

A video is difficult to dispute when captured in real time. A negative side to citizen journalism?  This becomes difficult in an era where even conventional professional journalism is under fire for being prejudicial, inaccurate or even unscrupulous. A point in case could be the recent Mayor Rob Ford alleged video. One of the papers involved has a history of being biased against the Mayor, its allegations unsubstantiated because of irresponsible handling of the alleged evidence. It could be true, it might not be true. In the hands of a citizen journalist it would likely have been one of two things – first, simply rumor. Second – viral and everywhere.

Online References

McGarry, C. (April 15, 2013). Online resources for Boston Marathon explosions. [TechHive story]. Retrieved from: http://www.techhive.com/article/2034676/online-resources-for-boston-marathon-explosions.html

McGarry, C. and Sullivan, M. (April 16, 2013). The best Boston marathon video was shot by amateurs. [TechHive article]. Retrieved from: http://www.techhive.com/article/2034834/the-best-boston-marathon-video-was-shot-by-amateurs.html

Trackett, C. (April 12, 2010). As Exxon censors local media, citizen journalists document Arkansas oil spill. Can the pros be doing more? [Treehugger article]. Retrieved from: http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/exxon-controls-local-media-coverage-arkansas-oil-spill-citizen-journalists-use-guerrilla-reporting-tactics-should-pros-be-doing-more.html

White, M. (April 16, 2013). What amateur footage can tell us about the Boston marathon bombing. [Globe and Mail article].  Retrieved from: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/news-video/video-what-amateur-footage-can-tell-us-about-boston-marathon-bombing/article11261246/