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Journalizing The Web

Posted by DaneMorgan • 10/17/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: blogcatalog, boutnies, broowaha, citizen journalism, citizen journalist, ethics, journalism, microlending, spot.us

So I was flipping sites and one of the sites in my regular flipping through schedule is the BlogCatalog Community Blog (bccb),and I ran across Jason's latest post about BC aquiring a piece of Broowaha ( www.blogcatalog.com/community/blogcatalog-teams-up-with-broowaha-a-citizen-... ). Seems they've been busy in Vegas.

Broowaha is a "Citizen Journalist Newspaper" where you can sign up to post news stories, as well as rate and read them. Kinda like blogging on a shared blog, but with a news slant.

So my first point of discussion is: Do you want to be a citizen Journalist?

Now, while I'm there, I find valuw in the site, because I trip across an article about crowdfunding journalism stories. Seems there's a new site, Spot.us, which "enables the public to commission journalists to do investigations on important and perhaps overlooked stories."

Now this is being compared to microlending, but in reality, it's more like the reverse bounty system we've used in open source software for years. I guess the palatability of calling commissions for journalism pieces bounties is less than optimal, but still, it is the reality, and for a thinking person, it does have to raise some concerns about the potential for abuses of ethics when groups of people are funding and defunding "news stories".

Ultimately I think my take is mostly positive, with reservations. What's yours?

User Comments

10/18/09

MrRadio

Thank you for the post & link.

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10/18/09

jasonthebaldguy

This could be a good thing, I think funding and de-funding is already happening on a larger scale so its not going to make much difference. I would actually like journalists to start going independent and break away from corporatized (is that a word? if not dibs!) News Media I think blogging has done this to some extent. The internet is leveling the playing field in almost every area of society, so it only stands to reason that investigative reporters get their fair share.

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1. 10/18/09
  
  Theresa111
  
  I like corporatized. Highlight this word and look up in dictionary, in order to view the definition because I wonder if it is what you meant to use. But a great response.
10/18/09

jasonthebaldguy

meh, probably not the exact right word... but close... I don't like that advertising by big corporations pays for the news, or pays for quieting the news if it is not in their best interest.

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10/18/09

MadameX

I agree with Jason that funding and defunding has been the norm for many years, and is getting worse because the funding/defunding decisions are typically made by a fairly narrow group. The big advantage I see to the system you describe here is that it will allow many more people to "vote" on what gets investigated.

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10/18/09

DaneMorgan

So does the funding/defunding of which stories get investigated gain or lose credibility if it is the mob making the decisions vs the suits in the back boardrooms?

I can see your point, but at the same time Americans are a funny lot of folks. They might complain bitterly at times about smoke filled rooms, but on some level they seem to think that that is still safer than handing it to the mobs, at least politically speaking.

Does that carry over into the fourth estate?

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1. 10/31/09
  
  TonyB
  
  the idea is to identify where "mobs" or "tribes" are influencing what is being pushed to the front or top of the news and reduce the weight and simultaneously if the readers are a diverse enough group and they like or dislike an article they effect it's position. There is valuable tension between "editorial review" and "readers" provided the editors powers can be reduced where a "non mob" values an article and the "mobs" power is reduced to a degree when the "editor" values an article. The real value comes from a diverse group of people finding value in a story and rooting out "mob" behavior and rooting out "editorial power grabs".
10/31/09

TonyB

BrooWaha.com has gone through some major changes. If you have a story or news to write about whether related to sports, politics, entertainment, stop by the site. The idea for the BC team getting involved with the BrooWaha team is to provide opportunities for bloggers to get more exposure, while enhancing their writing skills through feedback from both editors and fellow writers. There currently are around 700 writers on the site. Over the next month we will be introducing some tools that will make joining and being a part of BrooWaha more valuable than just giving you and your writing exposure.

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