BillHobbs.com is a frequently updated blog of original reporting and commentary by Bill Hobbs, a longtime Nashville journalist and media relations adviser. I am currently serving as communications director for the Tennessee Republican Party, a job I began on Oct. 29, 2007.
Here's an interesting report from London from Reuters:
Citizen journalism climbing up the media ladder
Videos shot in smoke-filled, bombed-out London underground trains, photos of body-strewn roads -- the July 7 bombings on London's transport system brought the arrival of a new advance guard of amateur reporters. Media commentators described it as a sea-change in journalism as mobile phone photographers, text messagers and bloggers dominated initial coverage of the bombings that claimed lives of 52 commuters.
But while those momentous events raised public awareness of how eyewitness-generated content can dominate the mainstream media's initial coverage of a big story, citizen journalism is still trying to establish itself, analysts said. "It hasn't got a proper foothold here yet -- citizen journalism hasn't carved out a niche for itself like in the United States," Roy Greenslade, a professor of journalism at City University and former editor of the Daily Mirror, told Reuters.
But more and more news reports in the "old media" have taken their lead from submissions by ordinary citizens and a new wave of political bloggers is challenging media commentators. "It helps us tell the story truthfully and accurately," said BBC Interactivity Editor Vicky Taylor, referring to the BBC's use of images sent in by witnesses of the London bombings.
Interesting. The story goes on to report on the growth of the British blogosphere and the emergence of "hyperlocal" blogs in the UK.
In the United States, the fastest-growing area of citizen journalism is the so-called "hyper-local" coverage of high-school sports or petty neighbourhood crime, usually too small even for local newspapers. That trend is also shaping up in Britain. "I expect citizen journalism to really take off at regional and local level: citizens reporting about what goes on in their area, on their street," Greenslade said.
The Press Gazette, a magazine dedicated to journalism, is leading the charge in honouring the best in citizen journalism for the first time with its Citizen Journalism Awards, to be announced on July 14. Among the entries are photographs and films of a local pub siege and of a local teenager being threatened by a knife-wielding man.
When will Editor & Publisher do likewise in the U.S.?
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