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As Detective Friday says, "Just the facts".
So what does everyone think of the new Citizen Journalism craze? Apparently people from all walks of life, from former Montessori school headmasters to woodsman are volunteering to "tell it like it is" for ProPublica Reporting Network.
Here is a little story about their new recruits and ProPublica's first initiative, Adopt a Stimulus Project.
Will It Fly?
These types of ideas may fly in local Western World media environments but amateur muckraking will be a bit more difficult to pull off in the Third World. As Lightstalker Suvendu Chatterjee stated, "There are almost as many opinions as there are people, figuratively speaking. Rare is the view which is incisive, informed and balanced."
Another Lightstalker member, Vadim Shepel pondered, "It seems because of their physical multitude, “citizens” make a very cost-effective way to report the “what”, and at the same time more and more distract from the “why”, in the process making the “why” almost irrelevant. No wonder big media flirt with it."
Lightstalker John Louis Lassen Perry also offered a frank assessment when he said, "Citizen journalists, or whatever you want to call them, should be demanding a reasonable fee for their service so that journalism can transition to a new form where you can BE a journalist and live from it while still being independent (isn’t that the ideal?), and not just be some guy working at Burger King whose blog is helping drive down costs so that Rupert Murdoch can buy himself another yacht. Think about it."
Investigative Reporting
In Cambodia, even professional journalists have a tough time pulling off investigative reporting. According to a May 2008 report issued by the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) entitled Reading Between The Lines: How Politics, Money & Fear Control Cambodia’s Media (PDF 1.9 MB), "The Press Law gives the government the power to suspend publications for up to 30 days, and confiscate copies of offending editions, if they publish information harmful to “national security and political stability."
"These terms are undefined in the law, and this provision has often been misused to silence dissent, punish libelous reporting and censor information damaging to the government."
Furthermore, it's not as if corrupt Third World governments are rushing to enact freedom of information legislation.
Dangerous Curve Ahead
In Cambodia, a 2007 incident involved a provocative publication called Free Press Magazine published by Lem Piseth, a Radio Free Asia reporter who had fled death threats earlier in the year. The magazine contained various articles and cartoons on sensitive issues such as illegal logging (PDF 5 MB), the murders of trade union leader Chea Vichea and singer Piseth Pilika, and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
All 2,000 copies of the magazine were seized by police and Lem Piseth and a distributor went into hiding, fearing arrest.
As this Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project blog post says, "Everybody loves the idea of a scoop and an exclusive but journalists walk into potential traps every time they try and meet up with people who by their very actions will be hidden and hard to locate or track down."
Will former Montessori school headmasters and woodsman face the dangers journalists are presently exposed to in the Philippines? I hope not but be forewarned Citizen Journalists, journalism can be a nasty and even dangerous business and the cost to produce it can be high.
John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
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