Amateurs can be good and bad news

Victor Keegan writing in The Guardian (5 July) looks at the pros and cons of the rise of amateur reporting of "news". Citizen journalism, as it has been called, is, however very limited in its scope. If I'm involved in an incident that I think is newsworthy then I can report only on my personal view of it -- I have no right to interview others and report on what they say. Citizen journalism is also very parochial -- I can't report on what happened in Kirkuk yesterday because I wasn't there, I can only report on what happened in places where I was or where other people were who have told me what they saw. So I can report on the ACEG Conference, at least those parts of the event that I attended, but not on the Association's AGM which I did not attend because I was too busy being an exhibitor!

I can only tell you about what is happening in the world of information if someone else tells me first, likewise in careers work etc etc. If the news media cuts down on the number of journalists that it uses because citizens are now doing their own reporting then, I believe, the overall volume of news may increase but will be less informative and authoritative.

Read what Keegan has to say:

The Internet often goes through bouts of soul searching, but a full-blown counter-reformation could be on the way. If so, then Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur (Nicholas Brealey Publishing), could be the Martin Luther of the movement. He believes the so-called web 2.0 revolution of interactivity and user-generated content is leading to "less culture, less reliable news and a chaos of useless information". You don't have to swallow all he says to accept there is a case to be answered. more ...