Is Citizen Journalism Just Journalism?

Citizen journalism, as further described in the video in my previous blog can be summed up as simply the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information (Wikipedia). The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.

James Farmer wrote in his blog for The Age, that he believed that Citizen Journalism is simply journalism. He said, "How difficult is it to collect, report, analyse and disseminate? Easy huh! Just aggregate information through something like RSS, or go to the game or event or be on the spot when something happens. Then you've just got to "report" on that, which also couldn't be simpler, could it not? Just write some copy or select the video or photograph and package it, not a problem. Analysis? Even easier: just a case of saying what you think about stuff. And the dissemination part? Easy peasy: simply develop and design a website, or join a website where people are doing similar to the above and that's that.But guess what? If you've just completed any or all of the above, you're no longer a citizen, you're a journalist. You're investigative and on the scene, putting together balanced, objective articles on the events or selecting media to illustrate them, applying your analytic skills and then distributing the final product through what is commonly called a "news and information site" (previously known as a newspaper)."

Farmer bases this argument on the belief that many of the major "citizen journalism" websites employ journalists to edit the masses of information that is submitted. Examples of sites that Farmer uses include Newsvine, Digg and OhMyNews. However, he concludes that there is a revolution, that this revolution is positive but it is simply not citizen journalism. "Let's have sites that are built on citizen media and far greater and more worthwhile interaction between readers, journalists and editors. It's a riveting and powerful development in the world of online news, information and entertainment, but it's not citizen journalism and nor will it ever be."

Farmer's arguments are not particularly well-founded and there are many opposing views that are available. But what his arguments do manage to do, is bring forth another, more important question; what is a journalist?