1. THE RISE OF CITIZEN
JOURNALISM- PART 1
Principles of News
University of North Texas
Professor Neil Foote

2. 2
Digital Media Disruption
• Traditional audiences changing
• The Internet becoming more commonplace
for readers/viewers to get their news
• Traditional media struggling to adapt in the
“new economy”
• Newsrooms racing to keep up with news –
that keeps on happening

3. 3
Bucking traditional trends
• OLD MODEL: Create content, then distribute
• Creating content, making it available
• Readers/viewers now collaborators
• Consumers as producers: “pro-sumers”
• Creators as collaborators
• “Democratization of content”
• Access to more content along with:
• Better tools to distribute content
• In print, online, on air
• Anytime, anywhere, any device

4. 4
“Newsmakers need to understand
that the swirling eddies of news are
not tiny pools on the shoreline.
Information is an ocean, and
newsmakers can no longer
control the tide as easily as they
once did.”
-- Dan Gilmour, author, “We the Media – Grassroots Journalism by the
People for the People” and director of the Knight Center for Digital
Media Entrepreneurship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism,
Arizona State.

5. 5
The traditional model
Distribute the
content within a
defined area
Journalists as
Content Creators

6. 6
Flipping the script
• Readers/viewers now collaborators
• Consumers as producers: “pro-sumers”
• Creators as collaborators
• “Democratization of content”
• Access to more content along with:
• Better tools to distribute content
• In print, online, on air
• Triple AAA: Anytime, anywhere, any device

7. 7
The new model
Readers/Views
as Collaborators
Distribute the content
anywhere, anytime, any device

8. 8
The Interactive Audience
• Now:
• Individual, personalized, direct
• Email addresses for reporters
• Tracking readers: Story by story
Top Down
Editors to
Readers
Readers in
Control
Audience
Participation
UserGenerated
Content

9. 9
Participatory Journalism
• The act of a citizen, or group of citizens,
playing an active role in the process of
collecting, reporting, analyzing and
disseminating news and information.
• The intent of this participation is to provide
independent, reliable, accurate, wideranging and relevant information that a
democracy requires.
http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php?id=P36

10. 10
The New Model of News
Technology empowering
grassroots
Information no longer leaks, it
gushes
Information takes on a life of its
own
Verification happens in real time

11. 11
Changing role of journalists, media
• Why wait for a newspaper or television
reporter to interview me to tell my story
when I could go direct?
• Get rid of the “middle man”: Editors
• Readers going directly to reporters
• Readers using fast growing, easy to use
digital tools to speak directly to the
audience you want to reach

12. 12
Mark Cuban on blogging
• Launched “Blog Maverick” in 2004
Q: What prompted the blog in the first
place?
A: I was tired of reading incomplete
information or misinformation about what I
was doing in the sports media. This was
one way to get the facts out.”
-- From Dan Gilmor’s “We the Media”, p. 73

13. 13
Voices on Citizen Journalism
• Dan Gilmor: Disruption is alive
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avyXQATlUbs&list=
PLWs5AVkTPaJQWRzE39nw6SIm4nNZ4KrUP
• The Economist: Worst fears realized?
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTRG2BZlizc
• Groundreport.com: The rise of citizen
journalism – Rachel Stern discusses• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlwM
WY5PG8

14. 14
The 2004 Presidential Campaign
• Vermont Gov. Dr. Howard Dean helped
transform campaigns
• His famous “campaign scream” led to his
downfall:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwkNn
Mrsx7Q
• “Open source politics” Campaign
workers wrote software to capture emails,
wrote blogs, communicated directly with
supporters, donors
Source: - From Dan Gilmor’s “We the Media”, p. 100

15. 15
How Blogs Trumped Mainstream
1. The resignation of Sen. Trent Lott, a
powerful, veteran politician
- I want to say this about my state. When
Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for
him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country
had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all
these problems over all these years either. —
Mississippi Senator Trent Lott, Dec. 5, 2002 said
during Thurmond’s 100th birthday

16. 16
How Blogs Trumped Mainstream cont.
• Lott’s support of Thurmond suggested he
supported segregation, voting rights laws
and lynching
• ABC News’ Ed O’Keefe and The
Washington Post’ Tom Edsall wrote about
remarks
• Atrios.Blogspot, TalkingPointsMemo.com,
Instapundit
Source: “ ‘Big Media’ Meets the ‘Bloggers’, http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/1731_0_scott.pdf

17. 17
How Blogs Trumped Mainstream cont.
2. CBS Apology on The National Guard memo in
2004
• CBS anchor Dan Rather admitted a key source
had lied to the network about President George W.
Bush’s National Guard service
• Story originally reported that Bush had received
preferential treatment to avoid fulfilling his
obligations
• Major media do stories on Rather’s original report
that ran on 60 Minutes
• Powelineblog.org: Immediate begins to question
the memos’ authenticity. Run by several attorneys
Source: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-09-21-guard-scoops-skepticism_x.htm

18. 18
How Blogs Trumped Mainstream cont.
3. TMZ.com reports Michael Jackson’s
death
• In 2009, the entertainment blog reported
his death – an hour before it was any
media had confirmed it
• Based its sources all over L.A. – from the
emergency room to Jackson’s home
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/business/media/27media.html

19. 19
Bloggers, bloggers everywhere
• Politicians running for office created their
own blogs
• Partisan groups launched their own online
publications (Matt Drudge’s The Drudge
Report, Josh Marshall’s Talking Points
Memo, Markos Moulitsas’ Daily Kos,
Arianne Huffington’s The Huffington Post
• Continued to grow in 2008 & 2012
presidential campaigns
Source: - From Dan Gilmor’s “We the Media”, pp. 101-2

20. 20
Gilmor: Niche Journalism Rules
• Too many campaigns, not enough reporters
and not enough space
• Issues of our times “too complex, too
nuanced” for major media to cover
• Perfect timing for citizen journalists to step
up
• Individuals passionate about issues – more
so than the masses

21. 21
“The monolithic media and its
increasingly simplistic representation
of the world cannot provide the
competition of ideas necessary to
reach consensus.”
- Joi Ito, entrepreneur/blogger in
“Emergent Democracy”
Source: - From Dan Gilmor’s “We the Media”, p. 103

22. 22
“More and more, journalism is going
to be owned by the audience. That
doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for
pro-journalists, who will always be
there – who need to be there – to
gather the facts, ask questions with
some measure of discipline and pull
together a larger audience.”
- Jeff Jarvis, blogger, educator and former
executive Advance.net
Source: - From Dan Gilmor’s “We the Media”, p. 111

23. 23
Citizen Journalism & Breaking News…
• Virginia Tech: April 2007
• Tahrir Square : July 2013
• Katie Couric and the role of YouTube in
citizen journalism:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySEIKI8I-Q