Also in the digest: SXSW | World's first website | Zoo | Party Animals and Life on Mars
Online news veteran Vin Crosbie has called time on the citizen journalism hype. Crosbie unleashed his wrath after a colleague on a Poynter dicussion group described "letters to the editor" as part of the citizen journalism mêlée. "Too much of what being cloaked or prattled about in our industry as 'citizen journalism' isn't journalism at all and a lot of it is simply b*llsh#t," he wrote.
He is quite clear about why much of the news industry has been so keen to jump on the citizen journalism bandwagon.
It is true that newsrooms have become too remote from their readers, he said. And it is valuable when citizens contribute their expertise of first-hand experiences to newsgathers. The concept of citizen journalism is as noble as Marx' vision of pure communism or Jean-Jacque Rousseau's vision of natural goodness.
"Don't get me wrong. I think that technologies via which readers can comment, help report, eyewitness, tip off, and otherwise supplement, amplify, or redirect newspaper coverage are absolutely needed. These are tools that every news organisation should begin using.
"However, I live in the world of real people. It's hard enough to find a professional journalist who can sit through 52 weeks of zoning board hearings and write intelligently about that, nonetheless finding an amateur who doesn't have a vested interest or axe to grind and who can sit through and objectively write about those hearings."
The industry has latched on to the concept because they don't have any other game to play. The term itself, which was coined by citizen journalism overlord Dan Gillmor, made the concept even more palatable to an industry that believes "everyone has a latent desire to do what they do".
"Citizen journalism itself isn't going to reverse the declines in news readership, listernership, and viewership. Not by a longshot. The real solution requires more than just the tools that folks in our industry are calling 'citizen journalism' and that are providing so much distraction."
It's fun when someone tries to rock the boat, and maybe things did need shaking up a little. The inertia of debate at WeMedia illustrated that. Considering that Crosbie consults to plenty of news publishers, it's likely to leave some people a little confused.
It has occurred to me recently that the single most important thing about identifying any new tools, any new strategy and even new content is simply relevance. That might sound really obvious, but in the maelstrom of discussion and hype about this revolution and evolution of news it must be harder and harder for publishers to work out exactly what is appropriate for their future.
Two years ago it was the spate of podcasts. Last year it was UGC. This year everyone is adding video players. Every year, the citizen journalism discussion rumbles on.
But not all those tools will be relevant to your publication. It takes a solid understanding of your title and your audience to know exactly what is relevant and what is just hype, and more than a little boldness to act on it.
SXSW
Any conference that includes a session called: "The real story behind Snakes on a Plane" has to be worth going to. If you're attending, let me know and I'll make sure I'm watching your blog.
World's first-ever website
I stumbled upon the first ever website today, created by Tim Berners-Lee at the European Particle Physics Laboratory, or CERN. First stop on the sightseeing tour of the web. This is one of those rare occasions where you can state that this was first of something without being corrected by some o'pedia-geek.
Zoo's UGC traffic boost
The website of Zoo Magazine has attributed a 157% increase in traffic to its redesign as a social networking forum with upload tools for photos and video. The site has seen a 25% increase every month since the October 2006 relaunch when the site was also optimised for mobile.
Party Animals and Life on Mars
Magic Lantern has been commissioned by the BBC to produce online extensions of two drama programmes: Life on Mars and Party Animals. The basic Party Animals site is already live, and Magic Lantern is working with the production company World Productions on scripts and plotlines for the online dramas which will relate to the storyline on the TV show. It is set up as an invite-only site, although the only contributions are written from the show's characters. The Life on Mars site is also live and includes episode guides, previews, catch-up video and soundtracks.
(Anthony Lilley, Magic Lantern's chief exec, writes a new media column for Media Guardian.)
