A friend periodically questions me about citizen journalism, the role ordinary people are playing — on blogs, YouTube and elsewhere — in getting news about their community out and into the world.
It clearly has its place. As I write this editorial, police are clearing Zuccotti Park in New York City of protesters, encamped there as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Reporters may not be able to get to the center of the action. Footage and photos shot by those within the camp — by those who may end up in jail — will likely help to tell a powerful story. But it won’t be the whole story, nor will it be presented with a dispassionate voice — a voice some of us find credible in this polarized society of ours.
Citizen journalism, amplified by the powerful engine called social media, is gaining traction and having an impact — but the results are mixed.
On the one hand, such first-hand accounts are giving us a window into the world at a time when news organizations, facing financial hardships, are cutting back on reporters in the field. When Katrina hit New Orleans, reports from the front lines came not from trained journalists but by those who were watching their homes get destroyed. When reporters fail to do their job or cutbacks by news companies mean important events go unreported, citizen journalists are jumping in, sometimes holding the news industry accountable for its failures.
But there’s a downside. These “reports” are often crafted by those who have a stake in the issue, one that is not clearly or honestly revealed. They sometimes carry the trappings or tone of real journalism but, in fact, are written or produced by those who have not been trained in the craft, those who carry neither the weight nor the responsibility of a profession that has evolved and matured over time. Some of those issuing reports have a left-wing agenda, others a right-wing one. Few are trying to tell a story dispassionately and objectively.
How does this play out on Vashon? At The Beachcomber, we welcome tips and story ideas, news releases and commentaries. When a car careens off the highway, as happened last week, we find out about it because someone driving by thinks to call us. When there’s a suspicious death in our community, someone, invariably, calls us. We’re a tiny staff. We can’t be everywhere.
But we’re also careful about what we place in our news columns. We know those who write for us. We rarely run news releases verbatim. We put taglines after stories, ensuring as much transparency as possible.
The need for such vigilance became clear last week, when the mayor of a city in Utah announced he’d been writing news stories — and sometimes quoting himself — under a pseudonym; the Deseret News, facing cutbacks and in need of copy, ran those pieces, not knowing, it turns out, who this freelancer was.
Newspapers play an important role in society, and we believe The Beachcomber plays a vital role on Vashon. We hope Islanders will continue to engage in a conversation with us, even as we work to keep our journalistic standards high.
— Leslie Brown, editor
