Citizen Journalists, User-Generated Stories and Content: Annoying or Helpful?

Wow, you take amazing photographs of *insert interesting subject here* with your iPhone, you are a talented photographer!

Your blog post about *insert random relevant news article here* was fantastic, you would make an amazing journalist!

That interview with *insert important person’s name here* that you uploaded to YouTube was so interesting, you should do more of those!

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Sound familiar?

Digital tools, in particular, smart phones, have made user-generated news-like content a lot more accessible. Practically everyone has a smartphone, so when a hard hitting news story breaks, you can guarantee that someone is going to film, photograph and write about (sometimes even live-tweet) the event. 

The citizens are taking over the news with their home footage, their use of hashtags and their camera phone photographs. The public is swaying the news agenda, with news programs struggling to keep a distracted audience entertained.

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I don’t watch the news on the television anymore. Primarily because the news is no longer about what is happening in the world, it’s about what is happening that is entertaining in the world.

I want to know about technological advancements that are happening overseas, not the advancement of Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy.

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I want to know about what was happening in Ferguson MI last year, not about what the latest viral video is.

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But citizen journalists do have their pros. The more people who have access to press tools means that the more we hear, see and watch when a major event happens. Even though my local news channels were showing viral cat videos while everyone was protesting in Ferguson MI, I could still log onto the internet to catch up with the latest citizen live stream to see what was happening.

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The rise of social media is allowing more user-generated content to reach the airwaves. Images, videos and interviews done by citizens are being broadcast on our televisions, bombarded to us on Facebook, hashtagged on Twitter. 

Are Free Photographers The Best Photographers: Cutting Costs to Keep Up with Digital Technology

I’m an avid photographer. I take my camera almost everywhere, hoping to get that shot. You know, the one that captures something truly amazing that rockets me into photography stardom. 

I’ve always been into photojournalism. I love the way a photograph can tell a story without a single word uttered. I like the fact that photographs are static, they are frozen in time, preserving a memory or a moment that someone else might miss.

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Photography is a fine art. It takes skill to capture something in such a way that it is powerful enough to stand on its own. That’s why, I was deeply saddened when Fairfax Media decided to cull many of their senior photographers in 2014.

At first I couldn’t understand it. Why would they sacrifice a job that is so important? There’s a photograph complementing most stories in a newspaper or an article online.

However, as I thought about it more, I realised that there was something better than a photographer. A free photographer. Twitter has revolutionised the way we receive news. It encourages 24/7 updates and has also birthed the citizen journalist. Why would a newspaper pay for photographers, when they could leverage the media people were sharing online everyday for free?

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Of course, the quality isn’t the same, the subject may not be composed a well, but if it’s free, is it better? 

In a world where the future of printed bulletins is uncertain, news corporations are looking to cut costs anywhere they can, but is photography the best place to cut corners? Fairfax seems to think so. 

Missed the 6pm News? Don't Worry!

I can remember being entirely envious of my best friend’s hot pink Motorola Razor. It was so cool. You could flip the phone shut and take a photograph using the small front-facing screen, you could create your own ringtones, film videos and, (if you had an enormous amount of money) you could connect to the internet.

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That was eight years ago.

It’s hard to believe just how far technology and more specifically, mobile technology has become. Using a phone like the Motorola Razor now, would be akin to powering up a computer running the very first OS of Microsoft: slow and dated.

We’re now so used to have literally the world in our pockets that it is hard to imagine ever living without 24/7 access to Google, or Siri’s inappropriate, yet sassy jokes. 

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The digital age has revolutionised many industries. Journalism is (obviously) one of them. My parents are still in the mindset that, if they miss the six o’clock news, they will not have another chance to catch the daily bulletin. Of course, we know, that we are able to get live updates from news applications, Twitter or blogs throughout the day.

News-ception?

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Alas, the 24/7 demand for news has meant that many journalists are no longer just writers, but curators, photographers and even their own camera crew. The role of the journalist is changing, which also means that the way in which news is presented and consumed is changing. 

Is it for the better? I guess we will just have to wait and see!