Comments on: Journalism Gets Better the More People Who Do It

By: Tonya van Dijk

Tonya van Dijk — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:44:54 +0000

Crowdsourcing can be both, good and bad. But for sure, we’ve noticed how “crowdsourcing is slowly changing the phase of journalism and other forms of writing”. Nowadays, crowdsourced articles are becoming better than those written by single authors, http://crowdsourcing.org/l/270. However, it doesn’t also mean that all crowdsourced articles are reliable.

By: Svavar Ragnarsson

Svavar Ragnarsson — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:04:51 +0000

I have noticed that the more I read from sites such as Gigaom, TechCrunch or even Huffington Post, the higher demand I put on the traditional media. I want the traditional media to give me the in depth coverage of any given topic, while I now go to specialized sites or media devices (flipboard anyone?) for the quick news.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:44:27 +0000

I agree in a way, Cyndy — I think what we have always thought of as “journalism” is being unbundled and distributed in its various component parts. So the on-the-ground reporting of things is now done by many, but it still takes someone to filter and verify and make sense of things (which Andy Carvin does, by the way). That someone can be a traditional journalist, or just about anyone else who has the skills and the brainpower and the knowledge.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:42:34 +0000

I agree, Brian — there has always been good journalism and bad journalism, and now we have more of both :-) Thanks for the comment.

By: Cyndy Aleo

Cyndy Aleo — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:32:21 +0000

It may be a matter of semantics, but I think what these additional people are doing is considered reporting, not journalism. All the information in the world is useless without the references with which to frame the information, and that’s not conveying the information, nor curating it. I can follow the acarvin Twitter stream, but if that’s the only news content I’m consuming, what does that tell me? Nothing. The news needs to have the analysis and historical framing and parallels drawn between that and similar events in order to make sense of anything. Otherwise, it is just noise without much meaning.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:28:48 +0000

There is some truth to that, but there also has to be some guidelines and standards for that. For instance take a site like Topix. It claims to be a news aggregator and information site with citizen journalism, yet every other post is things like who is sleeping with who, who is the biggest whatever in town, tons of libel and defamation, etc. That is not journalism whatsoever. There has to be a balance and how that is achieved I am not exactly sure. Using Topix again as an example, requring users to register and having moderators approve or disapprove what gets out over the site (and no that is not restricting speech, it is simply making sure there is journalistic integrity and standards including writing style and content are being met) would be a positive step. To me the concept is the same as blogging. I have read some great blogging where people post their name and talk about things that newsworth and take pride in their writing styles and content. I consider that somewhat journalistic and a good thing. Then there are alleged blogs that have no journalistic value whatsoever. That is where it gets tricky, you have to have standards.

By: aep528

aep528 — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:19:29 +0000

And just like TV, where there are more channels but less on, there is now more news but less information.