What is Citizen Journalism and what does it have in common with blogging?


Everything!


Citizen journalism IS blogging.


I was reading an article on the success of an early stage company , NowPublic. After four years in the making it sold for a reported $25M to media chain, Media Clarity.

What does NowPublic do and how did it command that kind of coin?


NowPublic is a news aggregator.


When you log on to its home page, NowPublic  appears no different than any other news aggregator:  MSN, Yahoo, AOL and the list goes on.   Its masthead says that it is crowd powered media.  But as you begin to read you notice a difference and that is that some of the articles are well …  rather amateurish.  Content is good but it sometimes comes with all the warts and blemishes of a teenager and has about as much polish.


NowPublic is the brainchild of Leonard Brody.  What caught his attention was the way that self-published blogs were overturning traditional media.  He and his partners saw the opportunity to funnel the eyes and ears of the average Joes and Janes, people who happened to be at the right place at the right time and witnessed a happening worth writing about and did -  on their blogs.  He saw this as the next generation in news publishing.


The term citizen journalism took hold.


The very successful and popular Mashable is an example of a similar idea – it is an aggregator of news in the world of the internet – a little more specific and niched than NowPublic which covers pretty much everything under the sun.


I recently met with the CEO of a company that seems to be running on parallel lines with NowPublic but instead of text content it is latching on to video content in much the same way.  Citizen videographers … ground breaking news caught on phone video and flashed around the world.  Think about the Mumbai bombing incident when the first videos out were from amateurs who were on the scene, pointing, clicking and submitting to You Tube.


Add crowd sourcing to your list of new terms.


So what does all of this have to do with you?  Read on.


The article is title The Prime of Mister Brody Its a good piece of writing and an interesting read.


Tony Wanless, the author of the piece interviewed experts in the field of journalism and media for this article … to quote

“  … crowd sourced news movement has supplemented traditional newsgathering …  so down the road we may see a ‘pro-am’ model where professionals work with amateur journalists…”
attributed to: Kirk LaPointe, UBC Graduate School of Journalism & Managing Editor of the Vancouver Sun


“… media outlets that are prepared to adjust to change will likely partner in the future with citizen journalism sites and other online content delivery systems …”
attributed to SFU communications professor Richard Smith, who concentrates on online communities and technology.


I have visited many a blog that was well written, interesting and worthy in my view of publishing in print media.  Now it may be an easier, you can be a citizen journalist and  have your piece in an online publications, such as an aggretator of your topic, or, you just might get featured in NowPublic.


Welcome to the world of citizen journalism!

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