Citizen Journalism Isn’t For the Lazy

Posted on By DigidavePosted in Current Affairs/Politics, Internet/Technology/Gadgets, Journalism Theory/Analysis
I recently had a trip to the Mother Jones office to meet with Nick Aster, formerly of TreeHugger who is planning some exciting things for MotherJones.com.

Shortly after my trip I read an article on citizen journalism written by Mother Jones writer Adam Weinstein. I then submitted the article to NewsTrust.Net for rating (you should rate it too – and then we can get a more objective sense of the article).

Overall I thought it was a good article but there was one major mistake which Leonard Witt caught below. Citizen journalism isn’t the lazy or cheap way out. Anyone who thinks it is hasn’t played in the space at all. I’m speaking from experience here – it is neither lazy or cheap. Period!

clipped from pjnet.org

Mother Jones Citizen Journalism Critique Flawed

However, if you are one of the many serious thinkers who believe citizen journalism has merit,  you would be left with the impression that Weinstein himself is so wedded to old-school journalism that he is either a â?crackpotâ? or if not that, then one of its â??sly marketers.â?

Here is the tip off. He writes:

If you could convince me that crowdsourcing and mojos and information centers werenâ??t about cost cutting or lazy journalism, Iâ??d be all for them.

However, you can see for yourself. First read Weinstein and then read this counter article in the Publishing 2.0 blog by Scott Karp.

  blog it

Scott Karp took a look at this Mother Jones article as well and an interesting scuffle occurred in the comments. If you want to see a classic debate on citizen journalism which is based on false assumptions, check it out but be sure to scroll down to my comment to see why the debate that broke out is somewhat of a red herring.

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