Multi-media

Reading 3 Stephen Quinn and Deirdre Quinn-Allan, “User-generated content and the changing news cycle” (Australian Journalism Review, volume 28, no 1, pp 57-70).

In one of the lectures in Multi-media journalism the professor showed us a comic-picture. The picture shows a man with many cameras standing behind a crowd of people. The guy says: “Excuse me, I am a news photographer”. The people in the front, everyone holding a mobile phone, turn around and say: “So are we”.

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This image really shows us how the term journalist has changed. Now all can be reporters. All you need is a mobile phone with camera and video, and be on the right place at the right time. A good example is from the bombing in UK where the newspaper The Sun used a picture from an eyewitness on the front page.

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By using citizen reporters the media can get breaking news faster and receive photos and videos they maybe would not have gotten. Another positive thing about this development is that journalists get easier access to first-hand victims and witnesses. However, the question is if citizen journalists understand the exactitude and ethics involved in reporting news.

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On the other hand citizen journalists give the news media competition by putting reports and photos on their own blogs. “The Pew Center in the United States reported in mid-2005 that about eight million Americans had created blogs and 32 million read them” (Quinn & Quinn-Allan). The big question is if this development will take over the traditional media?