Youth Radio - Topic: Citizen Journalism

Young Freelance Journalists Take Big Risks

noah — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:26:13 -0500

When Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in a North Korean prison camp we asked Josh Wolf- who holds the record in the U.S. for the longest stay in prison for a reporter protecting his source material- about why reporters take risks.

In the wake of the release of Ling and Lee, and the capture of journalist Shane Bauer by Iran, KQED-FM in San Francisco had writer and editor Andrew Lam on as a guest to talk about the subject. In that conversation Mr. Lam- who works for New American Media- talked about how young freelance journalists are putting themselves into dangerous situations without the same training and resources that reporters who work for the big news organizations have.

We followed up with Mr. Lam today on that topic, and on how the rise of citizen journalism is affecting the quality of information in the media today.

Why do young journalists take risks?

I think young journalists taking risks the same way that young people want adventures. The romantic notion of an intrepid reporter is still a very seductive notion even in an age of video games and internet. They want adventure. They are moved by injustices they perceive. They want to make a difference. I took a lot of risks myself when I started. Being of Vietnamese descent I nevertheless went to Cambodia in the early 90s and interviewed ex-Khmer Rouge fighters. I felt compelled to go after seeing the movie The Killing Fields. I learned a lot. But I nearly got shot one time in Batambang - a barrel of gun on forehead - and that taught me about taking risks. Personally, I don't think any story is worth dying for, but I didn't learn that from being at home. I learned that from being out there.

In your recent KQED interview you mentioned that freelancers and bureau reporters face the same challenges with totally different levels of resources. How much more prepared/equipped are bureau reporters compared to freelancers, and what will it mean for journalism as the foreign bureaus of the major news agencies are cut back?

A friend of mine working for AP was trained for what to do when taken hostage, what to do when under ambush, physical training with the military and so on, before she was sent to Iraq. And she was embedded. In other cases, those from a major news organizations come to a dangerous situation well prepared - with armored vehicle, interpreters and armed guards. They are given a certain level of protection. But we are in an era of receding foreign bureaus and major news organizations are under siege - there's no guarantee that newspapers will recover even when the economy does. What it means is that there'll be fewer protection for journalists out there. Have you seen CNN the last year or so? The i-reporters are taking over in a sense when a big story breaks. "Are you there?" CNN would ask. "send us your story?" Citizen can be reporters. Citizens are ENCOURAGED to be reporters. And many are stoked by it. They become active agents rather than receiver of news.

But they are not protected when they are overseas. They don't get the armored vehicles. They don't get the armed guards. They are far more vulnerable than the bureau chief of AP or Newsweek in Baghdad. If you get shot you don't have the resource to fly out by emergency airlift to a hospital in Germany for an emergency operation. You don't have major institutions standing behind you. You are not insured. You don't have all the right equipment like bullet proof jackets and helmets and so on.

The upside is that, as a young writer with ideals, you can do the story you want and ignore the story you don't want to do, because you're not under contract but selling your story piecemeal. You don't have to go through the traditional route like in the old day of internship and then years of a boring beat like city hall reporting before you get a juicy assignment. You can land in a city in chaos - and be the only reporter on the scene. It fits some temperament but it comes with an enormous amount of risks.

I think major news organizations will rely on these young, independent roamers more and more in the future as the foreign bureaus become a thing of the past. It's a way to supplement the wire stories - AP, AFP, UPI, etc - which are skeletal at best at a time when our engagement overseas are increasing with no end in sight. But the question remains: how much responsibility do news organizations have toward these young writers out there? Do they tell them: Think twice before you go. Take precaution before you go. Don't take unnecessary risks if you don't have to. Or do they say, go ahead, we'll pay for that story if you do go?

Personally, I think news organizations should ask themselves regarding what policies they have toward these stringers rather than just spurring them on for the sake of having more content. But that's my personal opinion.

As the major news agencies disintegrate we’re seeing the rise of citizen journalists. Do you think this is going to be a net gain or loss for the depth and breadth of reporting locally and abroad?

I already addressed the citizen journalist issue above. I think there's a lot to be gained when practically everyone is equipped - by having a cell phone you can record, take picture, send stories - to do basic reporting. The future is one where the reporter on the scene is inevitably someone who happens to be there when something happens. The victims can also be reporter. Think of the terrorism event in Bombay last November. Most of the stories that came out were from people in the Taj hotel texting while hiding from terrorists.

There was an amazing footage I saw in CNN when this student was running out of a building in Sichuan before it collapsed when the earthquake hit. He had his cellphone recording everything. When he got out the building collapsed. It got a few million hits in the first few days. But he's not going to be able to make sense of that story. He's not going to be an accountable reporter who gives the larger picture. That comes with experience, professionalism, and it comes later, when reporters show up with interviews of officials, and scientists, and many victims themselves. But the nature of journalism is changing and changing fast.

But accountability is still important. In India, when the radio station interviewed one politician who happily declared that "my friends are fine. They texted me. They are hiding in the ballroom upstairs on the Taj." No one seems to think twice about this: That the terrorists also have cell phones, have access to internet, radio, and tv. Who's accountable for this sort of thing?

And in Greece, last December, the twitterers who sent out message regarding the shooting of a youth suggested that he was killed in cold blood - shot point blank. The city erupted in flame. I was there. Everyone relied on those initial reports as fact. No one seemed to care what the policeman said: that he shot up and the bullet ricocheted. The coroner's report showed a few days later that the bullet was dented, meaning that it hit something hard, which goes in line with what the cop said. By then, of course, it was too late. Thousands of shops were looted and hundreds burned.

I think accountability, and verifying the facts are still the realm of serious journalism. I think content is one thing but providing Context still belongs to the realm of the professional, mature newsroom. Context belongs to the ombudsman, the writer who can provide context and big picture.

And you won't get that from anyone with just a cell phone and quick thumb.

Previously:

Also, Andrew Lam's Letter From Athens: Greek Tragedies & the News Media in the Age of Twitter is a MUST-READ for those interested in the future of journalism.

Ground Report Steps It Up

noah — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:06:37 -0500

Ground Report, the hyperlocal citizen journalism project that we profiled last week, has added a new twist to their experiment:

From now on, every news item submitted to GroundReport must be approved by our Editorial Team prior to publication. GroundReport's Editorial Team is a mix of staff editors and qualified members of our community.

After you publish, your work will wait in a submissions queue until our team checks and approves it.

As the citizen journalism movement expands we're likely to see this pattern repeated: a hub site appears and begins to funnel a lot of information through it before the need for both an editorial voice and oversight assert themselves. Ground Report says that the "bottom line" is every report on the site "will be credible and trusted". The move also appears to be a prerequisite for the site's new syndication partnerships with the Huffington Post and Newstex.

Since we're fans of citizen journalism in general, and Ground Report specifically, here we're curious to see how this move plays out.

Previously:

The State Of Citizen Journalism

noah — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:46:58 -0500

What are the responsibilities of a citizen journalist?

How are social networking sites and bloggers changing the way the media establishment thinks about reporting?

We asked Paul Grabowicz, Associate Dean and Director of the New Media Program at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, for some answers.

Previously:

Your Guide To Citizen Journalism [Part II]

noah — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:45:50 -0500

[Our Feature Spotlight focuses this week on Citizen Journalism.]

Part Two In A Series

In the first part of the Guide we checked out Demotix, CNN's iReport and YouTube's CitizenTube and Reporter's Center. Now we continue the rundown of marketplaces for user generated content with a look at a hyperlocal powerhouse, the viewer-created pioneer, and crowd-sourced muckraking.

Ground Report

[Speciality: Text]

Founded in 2006 by a former reporter on the United Nations Rachel Sterne, Ground Report was created to serve what Sterne saw as a dearth of global news coverage in the United States and the West in general. With International concerns and a "hyperlocal" focus, Ground Report seeks to live up to its name by featuring community reported news from around the world. Reporters are paid for their work, with compensation based on site traffic so that a story may earn anything from a few cents to a few hundred dollars. The site has strict guidelines regarding original content, fact-checking, and a lack of obsenities:

Posting false, pornographic, plagiarized, hateful or copyright-infringing content results in forfeit of all earnings.

Materials are released under Creative Commons licenses, with text based pieces receiving the focus of attention on the front page.

Current TV

[Specialty: Video]

Current was one of the pioneers in the world of user-genrated (or as they call it "viewer created") content. In 2005 former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt launched the cable channel with the vision of a 24-hour news network produced and programmed by the viewers.

While the network does produce a fair amount of content in-house for cable broadcast viewer created content (VC2 in Current's parlance) remains a key feature. Becuase the end goal of most "pod" producers in the Current community is to have their videos voted onto the network's cable feed there tends to be a greater emphasis on production values than in other venues. Aspiring documentary filmmakers take note!

The network's own shows- like the film review program "The Rotten Tomatoes Show"- often feature webcam interactions from viewers, so even those who don't have dreams of becoming the Internet's Edward R. Murrow can play an active role in the programming.

The Huffington Post's Eyes and Ears

[Speciality: Investigative Journalism]

The HuffPost's citizen jouranlism unit takes a slightly different tack. While Eyes and Ears will take submisisons on any topic, the program has an expressed focus at the timeof this writing of the human impact of the global econmic meltdown. In addition, Eyes and ears is organized around theconcept of an Assignment Desk and Investigative Units- which drill down into specific topics. The investigative units are a great place for someone who has the stamina for research, and who cares more about helping to put together the Big Picture than just making themselves heard.

If you fancy yourself being part of a team that might just break the next big pubic policy story or corruption scandal, then Eyes and Ears might be for you.

Also on the site today: Notes From A Citizen Journalist.

Your Guide To Citizen Journalism [Part I]

noah — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:18:40 -0500

2009 will be remembered for a lot of things. We're only half way through the year and it already feels like history has tried to cram a decade worth of action into the final reel of the Aughts.

One thing that won't be forgotten is the emergence of citizen journlaism as a force to be reckoned with. It was only a matter of hours into the year before a major story- the shooting death of 22 year old Oscar Grant in Oakland- would become the first of many to be shaped by the actions of non-professional reporters. Other dramatic examples in the form of the Hudson River landing of Flight 1549 and the uprising in Iran have signal a major shift in how news and information are shared around the world.

The best part of citizen journalism is that anyone can be a reporter: if you're at the right place and right time, that is.

Deciding where to post your on-the-scene video, investigative reporting, or stirring photo essay can be trickier. To that end we're assembling this guide to the world of citizen journalism resources and outlets, to help you get heard in the roaring thunderstorm that is 21st century media.

YouTube's CitizenTube and Reporters' Center

[Speciality: VIDEO.]

YouTube is the granddaddy of user-generated media. However when you think of ye olde YouTube the first thing to come to mind is a sneezing panda or a dose of Chocolate Rain. Everyone knows that real reporting might be happening on YouTube, it's just that finding a story worth paying attention to amongst the 20 hours a minute of video that is uploaded on the site can be... well the math speaks for itself.

This is where CitizenTube and the new Reporters' Center come into play. The CitizenTube channel and its sister blog exist to cast a spotlight on user submitted news footage. In the wake of the Iranian election CitizenTube became a clearing house for footage of the unrest. The Reporters' Center is offered as a resource for those who want to become better at being citizen journalists, featuring interviews with and tips from major media figures like Katie Couric, Arianna Huffington, Bob Woodward and Tavis Smiley.

Demotix

[Speciality: PHOTOS.]

Emerging as a serious force thanks to being spotlighted by the New York Times during the current crisis in Iran, Demotix is a UK-based citizen journalism blogsite. Specializing in photos and print, user generated content can be sold to mainstream media. Most of the work is done by amateurs and non-journalists. As of now, most of the site's headline coverage is on the Middle East, specifically the Iran Election.

Demotix is especially good for you if you’re looking to get money for your photos. The site has connections to major media organizations and will sell the rights to your photos in exchange for a 50% cut. You still retain the copyright to your pictures despite selling the rights for other sites to use your pictures. This is a great site if you want to get paid for your exercising your freedom of speech.

iReport

[Speciality: VIDEO.]

iReport is CNN's foray into the user-generated content field. A response to the Al Gore fronted Current TV (see Part II), iReport turns to CNN's vast audience for help in finding eye witness footage of breaking news like the Virginia Tech massacre and the 2007 Mississippi River bridge collapse. Contributors are not paid, but their work may be featured on CNN itself.

Reports submitted to the iReport website are "Unedited. Unfiltered." as the program's tagline states. However before a story can be broadcast on the cable network CNN producers check the facts for accuracy.

Glossary Term of the Day: Creative Commons.

Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization that works to increase the amount of cultural, educational, and scientific content are available for free use by the public. Creative Commons licenses are a tool that CC provides that protect a content creators rights while allowing others to repurpose, remix and/or share that work without money having to change hands. Without Creative Commons licenses the Internet as we know it would cease to exist, becoming a rather bland looking place.

Coming in Part Two: Ground Report, Current, and HuffPo's Eyes and Ears.

Reporters Rachel Krantz and Kelly Chau contributed to this report.

Previously:

After North Korea: Why Reporters Take Risks

After North Korea: Why Reporters Take Risks

noah — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:06:17 -0500

This week we've been following the sentencing of Current TV reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling by North Korea to 12 years of hard labor with intense interest.

As journalists, this story strikes close to home. On top of that, there's the curious silence of Current TV- whose only official reaction, so far, to both the capture and sentencing of their reporters has been "No Comment". On Tuesday we spoke with journalist Josh Wolf- who holds the record, at 226 days, for the longest prison stay by a reporter in the United States for protecting source materials- about his own investigation into why Current has been staying mum.

Josh's willingness to serve time, and Lee and Ling's very presence on North Korea's border to tell the story of human trafficking, speaks to the nature of reporters. Call it daring or just plain crazy: putting yourself at risk to tell a story isn't exactly "normal". So we went to visit Josh in San Francisco to talk to him about why reporters put themselves in dangerous situations.

If reporting and citizen journalism is your thing, you'll want to check out this interview with Karina Vargas: the citizen journalist whose footage of the Oscar Grant shooting played a key role in the development of that story.