Power to The People?

Posted by: cmfr

Posted on: July 6, 2007, 1:25 pm
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On the rise of citizen journalism

Power to The People?
By Melanie Y. Pinlac
MODERN TECHNOLOGY has brought about changes in the landscape of
news media. Today, another new journalistic form is challenging the norms of
traditional journalism. This new form—citizen journalism—is challenging the
notion that only trained and professional journalists can come up with reliable
news reports.
Advocates of this new form want to escape from the mainstream media’s
alleged monopoly over information and to give this power to inform to
ordinary citizens. Advocates say that citizen journalism provides the public a
source of news other than the mainstream media.
In MediaShift, a weblog that tracks the effects of new digital technologies on
media, editor Mark Glaser defines citizen journalists as “people without
professional journalism training (using) the tools of modern technology and
the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment, or fact-check media
on their own or in collaboration with others.”
Citizen journalism initiators also think they could thrive without the principles
that serve as the foundation of traditional news media. One of these
principles, objective reporting, is something citizen journalists could live
without, they say.

A break from tradition

In an interview published in Japan Media Review
(http://www.japanmediareview.com), Oh Heon-Yo, founder of the South
Korean website OhmyNews, said citizens without journalistic practice (or
citizen journalists) should not be expected to write straight, objective articles.
”We not only break the concept of ‘who reporters are’, but also… the formula
of ‘reporters are supposed to be like blah, blah, blah,’” he said. “Articles,
including both facts and opinions, are acceptable when they are good.”
Oh, a former reporter for the alternative magazine Mal, launched the pioneer
citizen journalism site in Asia, OhmyNews (http://www.ohmynews.com/) in
2000. This is in answer to the discontent that citizens feel about conservative
news media and their desire for a space where they could talk about
themselves. In his interview with Wired.com, Oh explained, “We wanted to say
goodbye to 20th-century journalism where people only saw things through the
eyes of the mainstream, conservative media.”
The site started with only four reporters. Today, it has 53 staff members and
approximately 38,000 citizen reporters. These citizen reporters are paid
according to the ranking of their stories—”basic,” “bonus,” or “special.”
Other than giving ordinary Koreans the chance to be reporters, OhmyNews
was said to have opened new ground for political reform in the country. For
example, it helped then candidate Roh Moo-Hyun win in the 2002 presidential
elections. According to reports, OhmyNews allegedly gave Roh the attention
conservative press denied him.
Today, other Asians like the Japanese have attempted to build their own
citizen journalism-inspired websites.
Filipino initiatives
In the Philippines, the idea of transforming ordinary Filipinos into citizen
journalists is slowly gaining acceptance. Perhaps because of the low Internet
penetration rate and the high web maintenance fee, most citizen journalism
sites in the Philippines are owned by bigger or mainstream media
organizations. This is different from other countries where citizen journalism
thrives in stand-alone web sites like OhmyNews.
Some examples are the Sun.Star’s “Citizen Watch” and GMANews.TV’s
“YouScoop”.
Sun.Star Network’s “Citizen Watch: The Arroyo Presidency” invites ordinary
readers to post analyses and stories on develop-ments involving President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s admi-nistration. This is apart from their regular
Sun.Star website, where daily news reports are written by the newspaper’s
pool of professional reporters. “Citizen Watch” was launched after the success
of the “Arroyo Watch” project in 2005. The “Arroyo Watch” weblog was formed
to track the updates regarding the “Hello, Garci” scandal.
The “YouScoop” of GMANews.TV, on the other hand, tries to involve citizens
in online journalism by giving them a free hand in uploading pictures and
videos that they think are newsworthy.
Not just online
Another noticeable feature of Philippine citizen journalism is that it is not
limited to the online medium.
Acknowledging the success of online citizen journalism in other Asian
countries, big media companies have realized the potential of citizen-driven
news media. Besides fulfilling a social responsibility—that is, empo-wering the
people through news—they are also able to cover areas where media
companies do not have regular reporters.
Today, the Philippine traditional media—print and broadcast—have used
citizen journalism in short messaging and multimedia messaging systems.
In the 2007 elections, ABS-CBN launched a project which was supposedly
patterned after the idea of citizen journalism. “Boto Mo, i-Patrol Mo” gave
ordinary voters the power to report unusual and suspicious activities in their
neighborhoods through their mobile phones. ABS-CBN then flashed the
reports on air.
In an interview with PJR Reports, Maria Ressa, ABS-CBN’s head of News
and Public Affairs, said, “the overarching idea for this “Boto Mo, i-Patrol Mo”
was empowerment using technology and mass media in order to ensure the
credibility of the elections.” She added that through this initiative, voters were
also given the capability to hold officials accountable.
Beyond writing letters to the editor and contributing to reader-driven columns,
some Philippine dailies want their readers to venture into citizen journalism.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer, for example, calls on its readers to “share the
good news where you are—and the bad.” In its Metro Citizen’s Call section,
the Inquirer features text and photos sent by concerned readers which range
from personal appeals and criticisms about local governance to alleged illegal
activities in their neighborhoods.
Redefining journalism
Still, the idea of having a press dominated by those who do not have any idea
of journalism is absurd for some journalists. They believe that citizen
journalism should follow the basic principles observed by traditional news
media.
According to Vergel Santos, chair of BusinessWorld’s editorial board, the idea
that anybody can be a journalist poses a danger to the profession. He also
says such thinking cheapens the profession.
”Journalism calls, not only for the understanding of certain skills, but the
acquisition of certain skills at certain levels. So, being able to build a site and
disseminate whatever information you wish to disseminate to audiences does
not constitute journalism,” Santos stressed.
He compares journalism to carpentry. Having the tools for carpentry does not
make one a carpenter, unless one has learned the proper skills needed in the
craft, he said.
“I’m not saying that citizens cannot be journalists. If they train, they might be
able to do it,” Santos said. “But to be able to practice journalism without
training, I don’t understand how they will do it.”
Danilo Arao, a University of the Philippines journalism professor, says giving
readers the chance to have their comments and stories see print or be
uploaded “are good initiatives.” But, he adds, citizens must be given the
necessary skills and knowledge to become journalists.
For example, according to Arao, “Boto Mo, i-Patrol Mo” may have manifested
the power of the citizen’s text messages in helping the network in gathering
data but it is not enough to call this citizen journalism.
Arao says what may qualify as citizen journalism in the Philippines is the
concept called peryodismong yapak or “barefoot journalism.” This is where
“ordinary citizens are taught how to write stories and produce community
papers.”
And some advocates of citizen journalism seem to agree with Santos and
Arao.
Back to tradition
Recently, there had been noticeable efforts by citizen journalism sites to
enforce rules normally associated with traditional journalism. Legal as well as
ethical problems caused by unverified and inaccurate reports that appeared in
their sites could have caused this change among advocates of citizen
journalism.
OhmyNews, for example, has been a victim of hoaxes such as a report on the
supposed assassination of Microsoft founder Bill Gates from a fake CNN site.
Now, OhmyNews enforces strict registration rules for citizen journalists and
has asked its reporters to disclose details concerning their bank accounts to
the editorial board.
Some websites have also required their contributors to abide by certain ethical
rules. Sun.Star’s “Citizen Watch” asks writers to take into consi-deration the
CyberJournalist.net’s Bloggers’ Code of Ethics, a modified form of the US
Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. One provision states that
bloggers, like journalists, should be “honest and fair in gathering, reporting,
and interpreting information.”
Meanwhile, some online citizen journalism sites, especially in the United
States, have realized the importance of news values and other basic
journalistic standards. They have already started offering Journalism 101
classes to interested citizen journalists under their management.
But a single class in journalism cannot provide all the needed skills in
becoming a journalist. One must have constant practice and training.
After all, there is no such thing as an overnight journalist.
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