Today in the "Organ Grinder" section of the Guardian web site, John Plunkett brings us a live debate (well, via a blog posting with comments from readers and a selected panel of experts) on citizen journalism. I've read through most of it and it's quite intriguing, if somewhat basic.
Here's one snippet that caught my interest...
Panelist Bill Hagerty (editor of the British Journalism Review) commented, "Do you pay for everything you use? If you use it, you should pay for it, I’m amazed people are doing it [for free]. I think that will change."
To which Jemima Kiss, news editor of Journalism.co.uk, responded, "...That’s a very old media view of why people interact with news organisations. There are millions people online operating in entirely different news and social communities who frankly don’t even care what happens in mainstream media. It should be encouraged that people are willing to interact without financial incentive."
Then the Guardian's Simon Waldman noted, "My greatest fear is that you are creating a culture of invasion of privacy for profit. I like the idea of people engaging with media, if people see something they should tell other people about it. But I don’t like idea that people can’t walk down street without having a cameraphone shoved in their face."
Kiss responded, "That is the danger of paying people for their pictures. Encouraging paparazzi."
Food for thought. I recommend reading the whole thing. It's an intriguing discussion and format.
(NOTE: I cross-posted this article from Poynter's E-Media Tidbits blog. Thanks to Cybersoc.com for alerting me to this debate.)
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