Peoria Pundit

This is NOT what I’ve been talking about during the past six years:

But St. Petersburg CBS affiliate WTSP is taking that concept a step further, soliciting viewers and users of its Web site to apply for one of 20 slots in a new citizen journalism program they are unveiling, training a group of non-journalists to use handheld cameras to capture compelling images they may stumble across on their own.

There’s not much money in the proposition — $20 for every clip used and the right to keep the video camera after a year. But the offer hints an an intriguing effort to take WTSP’s cameras deeper into the community it’s trying to cover. In my conversations with two different general managers taking over rival stations recent weeks, the mantra of community involvement was just about the first phrase which escaped their lips.

Let’s see: They are being trained by the mainstream media. They are getting paid by the mainstream media. And their work is appearing IN the mainstream media. Sounds like they are mainstream media. Just paid a whole lot less. It’s like McDonald’s letting amateur cooks flip hamburgers for the giggles.

The value of citizen journalism is that it’s performed by citizens, and “citizen,” is understood to mean someone NOT working for the MSM and not under traditional MSM rules and culture.

This entry was posted on July 10, 2008 at 9:36 pm and is filed under On the Media . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.