Citizen journalism is a relatively new field, with no solid
playbook. Practitioners are, to a large extent, making up the rules as
they go along, though they are guided by some of the bedrock principles of traditional
journalism, like striving for accuracy and fairness, no matter who’s
doing the writing.
Where do we look for guidance and at least some good advice if
no hard-and-fast rules are available? I look to a pair of this
fledgling field’s pioneers, Amy Gahran and Chris Willis. Here are some
outside-the-box ideas from each of them.
Amy Gahran
Gahran is a writer, blogger, educator/coach and consultant (and
occasional provocateur) who’s cast her gaze to citJ in the last couple
years. Along with Adam Glenn, she writes the I Reporter blog, which covers the citJ world. She also writes a blog called The Right Conversation, which often intersects with the citJ world, and a longer-running blog, Contentious.
Citizen ad reps: Here’s an innovative idea from Gahran. CitJ
practitioners are already working to encourage everyday people to share
their stories and to become amateur reporters. What’s in it for them is
usually only the satisfaction of sharing their knowledge with their
communities — and maybe occasionally a little money or other modest
reward. So how about training community members to be citizen ad
representatives?
This can give anyone who wants to sell an ad into a citJ Web site
an opportunity to facilitate a sale and earn a commission for the
effort. They might not actually make the sale, but they’d provide the
solid lead and get a commission. Or they might actually complete the
transaction if the ad-sales process was entirely automated. Citizens
who blog on your site might sell ads specifically into their blogs,
sharing the revenue with the Web site.
There are lots of possibilities with this concept. The premise
is that, just as citizens can be tapped to provide coverage of a local
community, touching on topics that traditional reporters miss or don’t
find important, so too can members of the community be trained to sell
advertising, and share in the rewards.
Pledge-drive citJ: Gahran also thinks that some in-depth
reporting could be done by groups of citizen reporters with a
professional journalist leading the effort. Community members
interested in seeing the topic investigated could be recruited to
contribute both their expertise in the topic and even money to fund the
project. Or interested institutions or organizations could be found to
donate funds.
As an example, let’s say that a local newspaper doesn’t have
the resources to do an investigation on local water quality. So it
organizes a “pledge drive” to raise money from the community
(individuals and organizations), then invites community members to
pitch in to the effort.
The overall idea is to tap community resources. If a newspaper,
say, doesn’t have the wherewithal to pull off a significant
investigation, then it can seek out help from the community — both for
money to fund a valuable project and for assistance in the actual
reporting.
Chris Willis
Willis is the co-author of “We Media,” a thorough examination of citJ first published in 2004 by the Media Center and revised into a We Media 2.0 report to be published soon. With We Media co-author Shayne Bowman, Willis also publishes and writes Hypergene Mediablog, which mostly deals with participatory media (a.k.a. citJ).
Share the wealth: Willis thinks that citJ operators need
to be thinking more about how to compensate people who contribute
content. Revenue-sharing models could be devised, so that there’s some
incentive beyond being a citizen reporter for personal satisfaction
and a little bit of public visibility.
But Willis suggests that cash be the last thing you try.
Instead, give people who contribute a report to your citJ site
something of value, like access to a newspaper Web site article archive
— which normally would cost something — or other premium online
services or content.
With citizen compensation, there’s of course the issue of
people gaming the system in order to get the benefits. Willis suggests
implementing reputation systems on citizen content, where readers rank
citizen-submitted content on a five-star scale, for example — only those
who score above a threshold quality rating earn benefits. Or volunteer
moderators can serve the role of deciding who deserves benefits.
Ask and you shall receive: You can probably think of
some great services that are just too expensive to pull off using
traditional methods. For instance, a great bars database would have not
only customer reviews of various facilities, but also information about
hours of operation and other details like whether they serve food, have
big-screen TVs, pool tables, etc. While a business directory service,
with bar owners submitting information, will catch some of that, a
community-wide effort encouraging bar patrons to submit data can
provide a more comprehensive database.
Willis thinks that this type of example will go over well with
“citizen reporters” who will be happy to share information about their
favorite hangouts. And once such a database is built, new forms of
advertising can be sold around it. For example, a search for a bar
could turn up those that are currently open and highlight those
offering free-drink coupons.
As citJ evolves, publishers will need to think creatively.
