Citizen Journalism

With the arrival of the Internet, the ability of nonjournalists to “publish” their words and link them with those of other like-minded scribes has altered forever the balance of power between those who control the means to publish and those who have something they believe is important to say. This shift from journalists as gatekeepers to citizens as reporters has profound implications for news organizations that “might have completely underestimated the influence of this new medium.” – Melissa Ludtke, Editor

Citizen Journalism: Introduction
By Melissa Ludtke, Editor; The Future Is Here, But Do News Media Companies See It? (1 comment)
By Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis; Where Citizens and Journalists Intersect
‘The crucial leap will be helping our audience become involved in the process
By Dan Gillmor; Citizen Journalism and the BBC (7 comments)
‘… when major events occur, the public can offer us as much new information as we are able to broadcast to them. From now on, news coverage is a partnership.’
By Richard Sambrook; The BBC’s College of Journalism (1 comment)
By Richard Sambrook; With Citizens’ Visual News Coverage Standards Don’t Change
‘In an era in which digital alteration of images is increasingly easy, credibility is everything.’
By Santiago Lyon and Lou Ferrara; Journalism as a Conversation
‘Only as an afterthought did it dawn on us that the audience is the real content on the Web.’
By Jean K. Min; Fear, Loathing and the Promise of Public Insight Journalism
A journalist wonders whether the mainstream news media will adapt fast enough to their changing relationship with the public to survive.
By Michael Skoler; How Participatory Journalism Works
A journalist describes why and how ‘a news organization works with its audience to have that “conversation” that is news.’
By Steve Safran; Citizens Media: Has It Reached a Tipping Point?
New media initiatives emerge when citizens feel ‘shortchanged, bereft or angered by their available media choices.’
By Jan Schaffer; Reconnecting With the Audience
‘What they say—not what we think—is what counts.’
By Clyde H. Bentley; Creating a New Town Square
‘It’s a locus for the kind of civic trust and independence on which the idea of journalism, indeed democracy, is based.’
By Leslie Dreyfous McCarthy; Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Became a Citizen Journalist
By Barry Parr; Defining a Journalist’s Function
In one approach to finding a definition, it turns out that being a journalist is about doing journalism.
By William F. Woo; When the Internet Reveals a Story (1 comment)
‘The challenge for me was to get the story off the Internet and into print.’
By Seth Hettena
Hurricane Katrina Coverage: Introduction
By Melissa Ludtke, Editor; Words Triumph Over Images
‘The human element was accentuated, and the best of the writing was impressionistic.’
By Curtis Wilkie; New Orleans’ Lower Nine Fades, Fades, Fades Away (1 comment)
‘Our neighborhood should’ve gotten more media attention well before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.’
By Will Sutton; Witness to the Tragedy
A veteran photojournalist observes that ‘… even during war the deceased are treated with some respect ….’
By Carolyn Cole; Rumors, Race and Class Collide
‘Class and race are inextricably bound up in New Orleans, and trying to make sense of it was as hard as trying to get accurate information.’
By Kevin Cullen; Seeing Is Believing
‘There was so much destruction that I couldn’t put down my camera.’
By Nuri Vallbona; ‘It Looks Like the Third World’
Writing in Southeast Asia, an American journalist comments on reporters’ use of this descriptive phrase in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
By Philip J. Cunningham; Drawing the Mood of New Orleans
‘Cartoon ideas presented themselves, but none embraced the gravity of the situation.’
By Steve Kelley; The Messengers of Mississippi in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina (1 comment)
In small, forgotten towns of the Gulf Coast, a reporter tells the stories she heard amid the hurricane’s devastation.
By Elizabeth Mehren; Questions for Journalists to Ponder in the Aftermath of Katrina
‘The first step is admitting that you don’t know what you don’t know.’
By Mary C. Curtis
Words & Reflections: Books, a Film, and Scandal: Introduction
By Melissa Ludtke, Editor; Bringing Iraqi Voices Into the Conversation About Their Country
A Washington Post correspondent’s book ‘is not a policy screed or a compilation of talking heads and experts.’
By Patrick J. McDonnell; Iraq’s Emerging Press
Providing the public with ‘accurate, complete and fair information was, and remains for most, an unknown concept.’
By Maggy Zanger; Childhood Experiences Shape a Reporter’s Journey
‘The great writers he’d discovered in the library at the orphanage became midwives to his talent.’
By Lester Sloan; Political Journalism: It’s Not the Good Old Days (1 comment)
‘But some of what ails American political journalism in our time is an overreaction to the failures of the boys back in Witcover’s heyday.’
By David Yepsen; The Role Women Journalists Played in Poland’s Freedom
Only when Solidarity won did the journalists realize ‘… they had formed the only all-woman cabal in Poland to make a counterstrike against martial law.’
By Peggy Simpson; The Life and Times of Foreign Correspondents in Russia
A book explores the work of covering Russia through the experiences and words of those reporters who did it.
By Alvin Shuster; Remembering One of Journalism’s Finest Moments
‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ brings to life how and why Edward R. Murrow pushed CBS News to confront Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s un-American tactics.
By Don Aucoin; Knowing When to Stop Reporting About a Scandal
A journalist describes the stages of a scandal, explains the news media’s role, and wonders why they don’t keep digging once the person has been punished.
By Madelaine Drohan

Words & Reflections: Intelligent Design and Global Warming: Introduction
By Melissa Ludtke, Editor; Science and Journalism Fail to Connect
‘How can we expect Americans to know anything beyond what they happen to remember from science class? Journalists certainly don’t tell them.’
By Dan Fagin; Strengthening the Line Between News and Opinion
A newspaper editor asks, ‘At what point in our efforts to be neutral in our news coverage do we risk becoming misleading?’
By Jeff Bruce; Editorial Pages and Intelligent Design
‘Once upon a time, I would have been mortified at the thought of exposing my religious views to my readers.’
By Cynthia Tucker; In Kansas, the Debate About Science Evolves
One veteran reporter describes the complexities involved in telling this story as like entering ‘The Land of Muck.’
By Diane Carroll; When the Conflict Narrative Doesn’t Fit
‘Conflict does attract readers. But pursued as a virtue unto itself, it can distort news stories and skew public understanding.’
By Diane Winston; Courtroom Testimony Offers an Excellent Road Map for Reporters
‘… the usual “he said, she said” quotes I read in press accounts have little or nothing to do with the actual issues raised by the Pennsylvania case.’
By Paul R. Gross; Probing Beneath the Surface of the Intelligent Design Controversy
‘… to truly understand I.D., people need to look at things in ways that are different from our accustomed patterns.’
By Gailon Totheroh; Intelligent Design Has Not Surfaced in the British Press
At a journalism seminar, a BBC producer was ‘struck by the concern about intelligent design amongst our transatlantic colleagues.’
By Martin Redfern; Knowing Uncertainty for What It Is
In reporting on the science of global warming, journalists contend with powerful, well-funded forces using strategies created by tobacco companies.
By David Michaels; Disinformation, Financial Pressures, and Misplaced Balance
A reporter describes the systemic forces that work against the story of climate change being accurately told.
By Ross Gelbspan; Observing Those Who Observe
A journalist travels to the ends of the earth and reports from ‘distant, inaccessible places [that] have a grip on the popular imagination ….’
By Daniel Grossman; The Disconnect of News Reporting From Scientific Evidence
Balanced coverage results in a ‘misleading scenario that there is a raging debate among climate-change scientists regarding humanity’s role in climate change.’
By Max Boykoff; Context and Controversy: Global Warming Coverage
‘… it is heartening to know that the simple inclusion of scientific context might help mitigate the readers’ level of uncertainty.’
By Jessica Durfee and Julia Corbett; Weight-of-Evidence Reporting: What Is It? Why Use It?
Journalists ‘find out where the bulk of evidence and expert thought lies on the truth continuum and then communicate that to audiences.’
By Sharon Dunwoody; Global Warming: What’s Known vs. What’s Told (1 comment)
‘Americans could be forgiven for not knowing how uncontroversial this issue is among the vast majority of scientists.’
By Sandy Tolan and Alexandra Berzon; ‘Early Signs’: A Journalism Class Project at Berkeley
By Sandy Tolan; How Do We Cover Penguins and Politics of Denial?
Bill Moyers suggests a new approach to conveying reporting about global warming.
Excerpts from remarks by Bill Moyers; Accepting Global Warming as Fact
‘It helps that the German media is less strict about the division between editorials and news than the news media in the United States.’
By Markus Becker; Culture Contributes to Perceptions of Climate Change
A comparison between the United States and Germany reveals insights about why journalists in each country report about this issue in different ways.
By Hans von Storch and Werner Krauss; Trying to Achieve Balance Against Great Odds
With the United States’s opposition to Kyoto so strong, a Canadian journalist finds little pressure from editors to include that perspective in his stories.
By Jacques A. Rivard
Curator's Corner: Nieman Fellowships in Global Health Reporting
Three fellows in the next three Nieman classes will focus their Harvard study—and four additional months of fieldwork—on health issues in the developing world.
By Bob Giles
Nieman Notes: Photojournalism Students Cover Hurricane Katrina in Their First Leap Into a Real-World Crisis
‘Mark told me he’d learned more in the two days he photographed the hurricane’s aftermath than in his previous two years in college.’
By Eli Reed

What are people saying?: Citizen Journalism and the BBC (7 comments)
By Richard Sambrook; The Future Is Here, But Do News Media Companies See It? (1 comment)
By Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis; The BBC’s College of Journalism (1 comment)
By Richard Sambrook; When the Internet Reveals a Story (1 comment)
By Seth Hettena; New Orleans’ Lower Nine Fades, Fades, Fades Away (1 comment)
By Will Sutton

News: Visual Appeal
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