I attended a Medill lunch lecture today that featured speaker Nazila Fathi, a female Iranian journalist who fled her home country in 2009 due to threats on her life by the government. She had spent years reporting from the streets of Tehran, often working with foreign press, such as AFP. There were many inspirational stories of being a journalist and amazing views into a life and work within Iran, which is, frankly, a very unknown and foreign culture and situation to those of us U.S.
But a few small comments she made caught my attention in relation to the on going debate here on the potential role of citizen journalists.
There is a lot of debate here over the potential of citizen journalists given the new accessibility of information and communication platforms. I will not get into the debate here now, but roughly the two extreme camps are either (A) we are in a new golden age of journalism, where digital tools allow anyone to contribute to news and conversations, not just the privileged few journalists or (B) we are entering a dark ages of journalism as the traditional mainstream media shrinks and there are fewer professional journalists with the knowledge and skills to report responsibly and thoroughly.
I have always agreed more with the former, or at least with its potential. Traditional media has always been behind the curve at understanding the potential of new communication technology, only adopting it when it makes sense to extend, or at least not disrupt, their existing business models. And really, isn't giving citizens a voice and a platform to report and broadcast the truest form of freedom of the press and free speech?
Admittedly many "Citizen Journalist" initiatives that get attention are not sources of promise for a future world of news. Are bloggers on the Huffington Post or contributors to CNN's iReport really exciting you? Twitter and Facebook are nice platforms and I get a lot more content that is relevant to me, but I also have a lot of traditional media streaming in as original source material for the discussions.
I have always been most intrigued with the potential for enhancing community-level news. Maybe it was growing up with a small town newspaper that covered every little aspect of life in the community and was read by everyone one and then moving to larger communities with very weak or non-existent neighborhood or suburban newspapers. But now I have a feeling initiatives like Patch and newspapers inviting citizens to contribute are not really going to get much. The editors at those sites are doing yeoman's work. But what incentives to average joes have to contribute something to the site? A sense of contribution to their community? Maybe. An opportunity to publicize an event at their church or club? Most probably.
So how did comments about repressing journalists in Iran get my thinking to publicizing bake sales in suburban Illinois?
For the most part the level of "news" in most American communities is quite tame compared to concerns in Iran. A bake sale or new Subway opening up is in fact news. And there is no need for a highly trained, and paid, journalist to investigate and cover. School boards, local governments, and congressional delegation definitely do need watchdog reporting. Who will do that? At the moment there are still news outlets with reporters, although their numbers are quickly dwindling for these beats. Can citizens volunteer to fill that role? Maybe, but probably not as a long term solution. The fact is that this is a lot of work and requires commitment, even if you ignore the skills and resources questions.
In 2009 when Ms. Fathi fled Iran along with many other professional journalists, she relied on the increase of citizen journalists as sources. She mentioned nurses and government workers who stepped up to gather and report on facts that could be further broadcast by external media platforms. But after awhile their contribution declined and ceased. And it wasn't because of government pressure. She said they simply had other jobs to focus on. Being a nurse or government worker. They were not being paid to spend the time reporting, even if it was contributing to the greater good of their country.
So if citizens of Iran were not able to add a long term volunteer army of reporters where the criticality of the news stories is very high and the vacuum of professional journalists is large, what does this say for the long term capacity of citizen journalists in this country to offset a decline in professional journalists?
It definitely raises a concern. I am not suddenly in the doom and gloom camp. I still believe we are just entering a new, great age of communication, story telling, and information consumption. But it won't be a smooth transition. Some things are still important to be investigated and reported by someone where there is more benefit for the community as a whole than their own personal interest. So now we do need to find ways to subsidize this work. But I've said that before.
