Update on citizen journalism

Dan Gilmour gives his update on the role of the citizen media including some points for the future.

We’ve come a long way. There’s a growing recognition and
appreciation of why citizen journalism matters. Investments, from media
organizations and others, are fueling experiments of various kinds. Revenue
models are taking early shape. And, most important, there’s a flood of great
ideas.

says Dan.

Of all the points that he makes perhaps the resolution of the ethical considerations may well be the most important moving forward.

He lists his points as

1. There has been a great deal of recognition of the phenonoma,he cites the Virginia High massacre as a good example
2. traditional media has moved into the act seeing that it can play a part in its own reporting
3. that then backlash against it proves in itself that it has an influence
4. the plethora of new tools on the market "have enormous potential to make journalism more diverse"
5. Although citizen media is struggling to find a business model,as is the traditional sort,there have been experiments in niche sites which are growing very quickly
6. that the costs of start up sites is almost nil
7. experimentation is needed,inparticular he cites collaboration and risk taking
8. that it has to acknowledge the questions that have been raised on ethics and trust,he moots that a code may well be needed
9. "moving from the idea of a Daily Me to a Daily Us. We’re coming closer and closer to the former, with RSS aggregators and other tools that help us pull together news reports from the sources we choose."