iBlog, iPodcast: Citizen journalism using tech (Part 2)

iBlog, iPodcast: Citizen journalism using tech

Mar 12, 2006
Updated 10:39pm (Mla time)
Leo Magno
INQ7.net

(Continued from last week)

AS we discuss blogs and podcasting, other terms like “citizen journalism” and “grassroots journalism” inevitably crop up. Dan Gillmor who left the San Jose Mercury News in late 2004 to pursue his passion for “citizen media,” defined the term as “the idea that anyone with something to say could use increasingly powerful and decreasingly expensive tools to say it, potentially for a global audience.”

We are seeing ordinary citizens reaching out to millions without the need to operate or buy air time from broadcasting stations. We are seeing them create electronic magazines without the need to operate a printing press. With inexpensive tools using a computer and an Internet connection, these citizens are becoming publishers and broadcasters themselves.

So the questions now arise: Will inexpensive alternative media like blogs and podcasts pave the way for grassroots or citizen journalism to finally flourish? What brought about this movement into grassroots new media publishing? What are the technologies and concepts involved? How will these affect media as we know it?

Poynter Institute senior editor Steve Outing said that new media such as blogs are key tools for aspiring citizen journalists. He said a “great way to get citizens involved in news is to simply invite them to blog for it. A number of news sites do this now, and some citizen blogs are consistently interesting reads.”

The Poynter Institute calls itself a “school for journalists, future journalists and teachers of journalists.” The institute has been issuing guidelines on how traditional media could more easily accommodate advances in media technologies like blogging and podcasting and use them to gather views from the grassroots.

“Blogging started out as an everyman phenomenon (and now, it seems, almost everyone has a blog), but then professional journalists took up the form, too. But the real promise of blogs remains with the non-journalists, for whom blogging has given a powerful and inexpensive publishing tool to reach out to the world with their stories and thoughts,” Outing said.

However, blogging and podcasting are still budding technologies, which makes it even more interesting why government and corporate entities want to nip them in the bud. Ronald Meinardus, resident representative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in the Philippines and a commentator on Asian affairs, said there are about 24 million blogs and 20,000 podcasts out there.

Meinardus calls them “digital grassroots communicators” and that “real political power and influence is now being wielded through online communities comprising millions of people.”

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation proclaims that it is dedicated to liberalism, where key ingredients are individual freedom and active participation of citizens to become aware of their rights. With its own podcast it is encouraging individuals to join the public sphere using technology.

“As with weblogs, the great majority of podcasts are produced and hosted in North America,” said Meinardus. “This approach -- which shrinks the gap between creator and consumer -- poses a major challenge for traditional media companies, which are increasingly having a hard time attracting the young generation. Instead of reading newspapers or arranging their schedules around TV shows, more and more young people in advanced societies are flocking to so-called online communities.”

So here we see digital and personal counterparts of the print medium with blogs, and a digital and personal counterpart of TV and radio with podcasts. Whereas before, the cost of printing and publishing news was prohibitive, individual citizens are now blogging their own news and views. Whereas before, the cost of broadcasting your own radio or TV show was prohibitive or nigh-impossible, individual citizens can now podcast. This development is changing not only the face but also the very definition of the word “media.” We are moving into personalized content produced by the end-users themselves and into newer forms of media, and some of these are becoming influential.

“We’re seeing a shift from mass media to ‘my media’ where the user is the programmer and creator of content. Consumers are becoming the producers of content,” said Yahoo! Inc. chairman and CEO Terry Semel in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Semel recalled an incident when a series of coordinated suicide bombings occurred in the streets of London on July 7, 2005. This, he said, showed that “citizen journalism was really alive and well.”

“People right there in the middle of the action started taking photos from their cell phones and giving updates on their blogs,” he said. “These updates from professional journalists and even just plain old bystanders became available almost immediately. Some photo updates were even posted on their blogs faster than the news networks.”

Such content is called “tail content or user-generated content,” where tens of thousands of consumers generate information for niche markets to form a long line of “de-massified” content. De-massified content refers to information that is tailored for or targeted at specific individuals as opposed to having just one message being broadcast to a mass audience base.

During a media technology roundtable in Sydney, Australia, next-generation futurist and strategic media analyst Andrew Zolli echoed what Semel said.

“The distinction between who is the consumer and who is the producer of information is dissolving in the participation economy,” the New York executive said. “There is a shift from people seeing themselves as information consumers to participants and we will see this social change transform media. These people are now becoming ‘professional amateurs.’ In the 19th century an ‘amateur’ was defined as a person who does something out of love or devotion while back then a ‘professional’ was someone who does it for money. These people will increasingly participate online and change many economies, not just that of media.”

At the same media roundtable in Sydney, Mauro Montanaro, vice president for multimedia of Nokia, gave an even more extreme view on new media and traditional media.

“This is the death of journalism as we know it,” he said. “During the Afghan war 10 years ago people with big, clunky videophones sent reports back to their newsrooms. Today you can do that with a cell phone. During the Paris riots, people were taking pictures and blogging using their cell phones. Today it’s the immediacy of the news that matters. People’s attention spans are getting shorter, so content is also getting shorter and more straight-to-the-point.”

Earlier, the analogy between blogs and the print medium and podcasts with broadcasting was made. The prohibitive costs of printing and broadcasting, new media advocates say, have all but disappeared. Now anyone can be a reporter and editor or a broadcast announcer and producer at the same time.

New media users like Ooi even present more provocative views -- that the incumbency of traditional journalists is being challenged by new media producers who have no background in the field of journalism.

“When it comes to opinion, it’s the senior editor who calls the shots,” said Ooi. “But now, anybody who has a tiny inkling of how to use the technology can share their opinion. This is where the incumbency of journalists has been challenged. You have serious bloggers who blog ahead of news and have strong interactive mechanisms with learned and informed people. I think that is where the entire domain which used to belong to journalists starts to collapse or is being eroded.”

This statement obviously would not sit well with journalists in traditional media. Although many professional journalists have already embraced blogging and podcasting, others are more prudent in making the conclusion that ordinary citizens would, indeed, become tomorrow’s journalists. The sticking point: Accuracy.

“As a person who once studied statistics, I would always look at the validity of the facts presented by the bloggers and podcasters. It can be a viable source of information, but corroboration is necessary,” said Zatni Arbi, reporter of The Jakarta Post.

As with traditional media, accuracy has always been the focal point of journalism. Arbi said one benefit that could be derived from the emergence of citizen journalists using new media is that readers would learn to be more discerning when it comes to accepting information from any source.

Inevitably, the question of accuracy gives birth to more issues like credibility.

“I believe the market will determine the credibility of the bloggers and podcasters,” he said. “In this case, it is not much different from the traditional media. The good thing about the Internet and the new media is that they teach people to be more critical in what they read, and to add a grain of salt in the dish.”

Radio and television show producer and host Jerry Liao agreed.

“Credibility will come into play,” said Liao. “If the blogs, podcasts and videocasts will be done by news organizations or prominent personalities, then readers will accept them as reliable. But by saying that, you can expect readers and listeners will still verify the story from legitimate news sources that they have relied upon for a long time.”

Liao added that most respected journalists and news organizations worked for years to earn the credibility they enjoy today. No matter how fast technology facilitates media production, he said, credibility is not something that is built overnight.

“The make or break of informal reports will again depend on the credibility of the writer and its content,” Liao said. “Becoming a viable source of info does not come overnight. Continuous availability of reliable info will be critical. Having one or two good stories won’t do it.”

Another TV journalist, this time from Indonesia, agreed with Liao.

“Most people who use the Internet are educated people. I guess they will not easily believe in everything they read on the Internet especially in blogs that are owned by somebody they don’t even know. They will cross-check the information from a reputable source. The story of a blogger who has no journalistic training will not get a reader,” said Indra Prawira of MetroTV PT Media Televisi Indonesia.

Prawira does not believe individual bloggers and podcasters will become part of the mainstream in the future.

“In Indonesia? I don’t think so,” he said. “Even the Internet is not well recognized here. Globally? Could be. We need other sources to get confirmation of what the blog tells us. We Indonesian people hardly consider blogs or even the Internet as a source of information.”

And with credibility, the question of accountability in new media also arises.

“New media, to me, offers a wider choice to the consumers of information, but there is no one to be held responsible for the validity of the content,” said The Jakarta Post’s Arbi.

This, he said, even emphasizes the need for editors to be on top of the information flow.

“Because there is no board of editors to hold responsible for the content that a citizen journalist offers, it is easier to challenge him,” said Arbi the reporter.

Shawn Chung, editor-in-chief of T3 Singapore, said ethics set journalists apart from bloggers.

“Journalism training is not about how to write the proper prose, how to report an incident using the 5W method, how to construct an article using the pyramid system of priority,” he said. “It’s also about proper ethics and guidelines. Bloggers feel that they can get away with infantile slander, hearsay, etc. They are simply unprofessional as journalists, and a lot of them don’t want to adopt proper procedures.”

Chung, who does not see blogs and podcasts becoming part of mainstream media in the next five years, added that bloggers in Singapore are “immature.”

“From the Singapore experience, bloggers here are naive in the sense that they feel empowered to post what they want, when they want,” he said. “I think these new forms of media have very narrow focuses, and very narrow agendas behind them. This is not citizen journalism. If so, it’s a very yellow form of citizen journalism, with few exceptions. It’s proven that in the Singapore experience, bloggers here are too immature to even attempt to rival mainstream journalism.”

Accuracy, credibility and accountability. How would bloggers and podcasters satisfy these prerequisites of becoming a reliable source of information? Do bloggers and podcasters see themselves as journalists at all?

A man who sits on both sides of the fence is Eddie Ilarde. A radio and television announcer before he became a Philippine senator, Ilarde has experienced a renaissance of sorts. He is a pioneer radio announcer and a lifetime achievement awardee for both radio and television. And at 71, Ilarde has started podcasting, so he knows how it is to be part of the traditional broadcasting system and how to utilize the novel methods offered by new media.

The veteran Ilarde, who became famous for his radio-turned-television program called “Kahapon Lamang,” said new media reporters may have something to offer that traditional ones do not. He said a stronger sense of community among podcasters serves as a check-and-balance mechanism for podcasts.

“Yes, any Tom, Dick and Harry can do this (podcasting), but only those who talk sense will survive,” Ilarde said. “There are millions of people broadcasting on the Internet, and this is good and bad at the same time. It’s not a direct broadcast. Podcasts can be accessed by those who want to hear the podcast. And people on the Internet can check each other. Listeners are podcasters and podcasters are listeners; they check and balance each other.”

Ilarde added that the professional rat race in media and the constant goal to top the competition may cause professional journalists to stray from the service-oriented job they are supposed to perform.

“Newscasters are already paid,” he said. “They are paid to do what they do. Amateurs are there to give you information because of passion to do it. They are not professionals but for all you know they could be better than us.”

This brings to mind what future media analyst Zolli said about amateurs and professionals, that bloggers and podcasters are now becoming “professional amateurs.”

“Podcasts are not being broadcast by big networks like BBC or CNN or any other network. That is the point,” Ilarde said. “[Podcasters] are accountable to their listeners. But when you have a radio or TV host, a so-called journalist being paid by a big network company who does not do his homework -- that’s a lot worse.”

Hong Kong blogger Yan Sham-Shackleton said most of her entries are commentary in nature, but that she does go through the usual fact-checking procedure. She also believes there is a middle ground between the emerging new media and the traditional media, that blogs are not owned by any particular group of people and that in new media, typecasting and arbitrary labeling should be avoided. Yan Sham-Shackleton’s blog is banned in mainland China for her continuing comments on the Tiananmen massacre.

“I don’t think you need to have formal training to be a journalist,” she said. “But you do need to have some sort of experience working with newspapers or magazines. What I do now in Glutter has no resemblance with what it is like to be a reporter or an editor. Reporting and being an editor is a skill set, you have to learn it and earn it. With this new technology, anyone can comment and report on events. They can be primary sources of information, they can be eyewitnesses, they can with a click of a button allow a lot of people to come and read their thoughts. But not everyone is a reporter. That said, anyone can own a blog so reporters can as well. Reporters can own a blog but not all blog owners are reporters.”

Yan also encourages readers to be more discerning about any information they get from the Internet.

Malaysian blogger Jeff Ooi already has a sizeable following in his country, and he attributes this to verifying anything he writes.

“Even though I am not a named journalist or a trained journalist -- I never was one -- I do follow the professional ethics of journalists,” Ooi said. “I use multi-sourcing, I go for independent sources, and I follow that to the ‘T’. That helped me get the reputation of having a high level of integrity.”

However, inasmuch as Yan and Ooi admit that strictly speaking they were never trained as journalists, even trained journalists make mistakes. Wouldn’t it be more dangerous for non-trained people to act as reporters?

Untrained journalists that they are, neither Yan nor Ooi claim to be journalists in the first place.

“I am not a journalist, and most people with blogs are not either,” said Yan. “Most blogs are more like a remote control. They simply lead other people to what journalists have written. I see myself as a cultural critic and writer than a reporter because I don’t seek new information and then report it. On occasions I might talk about an event I experienced but always from a first-person point of view. I don’t hide behind any kind of objectivity, or even a certain political paradigm. What I write is what I think, take it or leave it.”

Yan added: “I am not a blogger, I am a person who happens to have a blog.”

Ooi said something similar.

“Essentially bloggers are not journalists,” he said. “They are not trained as one but you are providing a grassroots perspective that would reflect the aspirations of the masses, and it’s high time that the powers that be take cognizance of these voices. So with that we have an expansion whereby blogs will be an effective channel to project alternative views, not necessarily dissenting views.”

For some podcasters, the processes which journalists go through were all thrown at them unwittingly until they realized that podcasting entailed journalistic training on the job. They had to hit the ground running and then realized the responsibility that goes with airing one’s views.

“It is interesting,” said Julian Yu, 44, producer of What’s up in Taiwan, a podcast on news and issues in Taiwan. A lyricist for Mandarin pop songs, Yu has no background in journalism. “When I started editing the interviews for the first time, I felt like I was the censorship guy. What should and shouldn’t I keep in the final cut? It bugged me for a while, and then later I realized that I was my own censor! I put my name there so I just do what I know, what I believe.”

Similarly, 24-year-old Josh, who podcasts weekly from the basement of his home in Japan, does not see himself as a journalist.

“I do not consider myself a journalist,” said Josh, an active duty sailor stationed at a coastal naval base in Japan. “My podcast is intended for a very niche audience. Bloggers in general do have the power to influence journalism, and some may be more qualified than today’s average journalist. However, without the big daddy media backing, it’s always going to be a hobby no matter how hard that blogger tries to break into mainstream.”

(To be continued next week)