1
Slack to the future
THE future of The Champion is pensioners with Palm pads.
At least that’s according to one article I read earlier this week, where a writer on a local website put the boot into our reporting – and our friends over at the Visiter and Advertiser office, for that matter – because newspapers are having a tough time. Citizen journalism is the way forward.
Yet it’s an assertion almost as rubbish as citizen reporting itself.
The charge we as reporters face every day is that we’re just mouthpieces for the local council, are too few in number to get to stories and always seem to miss the juicy exclusives that werunanystory.com seems to get.
Take the tragic story of Baby P for instance. Even though the papers wouldn’t run his name, any Google search for “Baby P mother” could quickly reveal any number of shady sites prepared to give you his name, date of birth and exact address in seconds.
The only problem was – and it’s the secret behind a lot of online “exclusives” - that running the information was illegal, a classic contempt of court. While any newspaper would have landed themselves in hot water for printing it, the bloggers and the tweeters got away with it.
But trusting stories from people with no journalistic background who aren’t even prepared to give you their real name is like buying counterfeit drinks, and just as dangerous.
We know what’s going on – it’s our job to – but unlike the mysterious characters behind much of citizen journalism, we have to play by the rules. Unlike randomwriter123, we’re bound by defamation laws and the Press Complaints Commission's Code of Conduct.
But at least you know with us that our news is written and researched to the highest standards, and there’s a trained, named journalist behind it. We might be facing tough times, but we’re professionals to the core.
I know who I’d trust with a breaking story, and it wouldn’t be an anonymous blogger.
|
At least that’s according to one article I read earlier this week, where a writer on a local website put the boot into our reporting – and our friends over at the Visiter and Advertiser office, for that matter – because newspapers are having a tough time. Citizen journalism is the way forward.
Yet it’s an assertion almost as rubbish as citizen reporting itself.
The charge we as reporters face every day is that we’re just mouthpieces for the local council, are too few in number to get to stories and always seem to miss the juicy exclusives that werunanystory.com seems to get.
Take the tragic story of Baby P for instance. Even though the papers wouldn’t run his name, any Google search for “Baby P mother” could quickly reveal any number of shady sites prepared to give you his name, date of birth and exact address in seconds.
The only problem was – and it’s the secret behind a lot of online “exclusives” - that running the information was illegal, a classic contempt of court. While any newspaper would have landed themselves in hot water for printing it, the bloggers and the tweeters got away with it.
But trusting stories from people with no journalistic background who aren’t even prepared to give you their real name is like buying counterfeit drinks, and just as dangerous.
We know what’s going on – it’s our job to – but unlike the mysterious characters behind much of citizen journalism, we have to play by the rules. Unlike randomwriter123, we’re bound by defamation laws and the Press Complaints Commission's Code of Conduct.
But at least you know with us that our news is written and researched to the highest standards, and there’s a trained, named journalist behind it. We might be facing tough times, but we’re professionals to the core.
I know who I’d trust with a breaking story, and it wouldn’t be an anonymous blogger.
|
