This is my last guest post on the Wardman Wire, and in all honesty it’s been quite difficult to do a post about ‘citizen journalism’ without going into massive detail about the technology or delving deeply into its potential challenge to mainstream media.

For those wondering what I’m on about citizen videojournalism - at its most basic - where you pick up a consumer-grade camera, pretend you’re a journalist and upload your resulting video to sites like YouTube or even start your own channel on Blip.tv.

New Age … or Not

Some heralded the ease at which Joe Bloggs could produce video as the beginning of the end for traditional news outlets. Those on the other side of the fence argued that it would never replace mainstream output. It appears they are winning the argument.

You see, being a citizen journalist might sound sexy, but it’s a lot harder to become a success than salesmen and evangelicals would have us think.

Lights, Camera, Action… Or not

The first hurdle to overcome for would be citizen journalists is the difficulty of physically putting a report together. First there’s the shoot - make sure you get the lighting right. Then there’s the editing, which takes an eternity and is quite a hard thing to pick up.

If all of this comes easy to you then you’re going to do just fine, but not everybody has the required skills… And that’s why citizen journalism will not be challenging the mainstream any time soon. A lot of citizen journalist reports are frankly rubbish.

Johnny on the Spot

The one area that citizen journalism has taken off is in providing the mainstream media with instant content around events like the 7/7 tube bombings for instance. The whobbly poor quality footage adds a sense of reallism to the professional’s package and provides witness accounts with the need for reconstructions. That’s where the power of citizen journalism lies - in supporting the mainstream not trying to compete with it.

The news that Sky News will be arming 400 people with cameras at the next general election shows how much this is true. It won’t be the 400 that edit the packages, it’ll be the professionals that do that.

As Easy as Cut and Paste … Or Not

The full-on revolution will have to wait, at least until the technology makes things as easy as cutting and pasting.

Tags: citizen jouralism, blog, podcast, vlog, mike rouse, videoblog[tags]citizen jouralism, blog, podcast, vlog, mike rouse, videoblog[/tags]