The conference has some scholarships available for working journalists. A link to the application is here.

I am primarily interested in finding who coined this term and when it
entered the mainstream media. If you are not sure of the exact timing of
the coinage, I am still interested in when you first heard the term “citizen
journalist” or any other relevant information on this topic. Any insights
you have would be greatly appreciated.

It’s a great question. I don’t have a great answer.

I sent out a Twitter Tweet asking for ideas. One person shot back, Ben Franklin. Certainly Franklin was one of the first to *be* a citizen journalist…

There’s a lot of history, including recent history, to examine. Let’s look, for example, at some newspaper databases — keeping in mind that most newspaper archives went online in this way only in the 1980s. (This has led to the modern journalistic failing, exhibited in this posting, of imagining that the world began roughly in 1980…)

A query on “citizen journalist” in NewsBank turns up a piece by the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Jim Klobuchar, “Work won’t be as lively without her,” dated October 12, 1988. Writing about a colleague, Barbara Flanagan, he said:

As a newspaperwoman, she been a welcome guest in hundreds of thousands of homes for a quarter of a century and as a citizen-journalist she has been a force for good in her community just as long.

I like that. A “force for good in her community” is a high achievement for any journalist.

Jumping ahead to 1995, NewsBank turns up an AP article about Sarah McClendon, who said:

“I’m a citizen journalist ,” she explained. “It means I am trying to do my journalism with the idea in mind I am seeking to give more information to the people of this country for their own good.”

I like that a great deal, too, even with the eat-your-spinach element, because in the end journalism is about giving each other more information for our collective good.

Some people have conflated “civic journalism” with “citizen journalism.” The expression “civic journalism” (also called “public journalism”) was coined in the late ’80s and early ’90s, by Jay Rosen, Jan Schaffer and several others. It connoted the idea that media organizations would help set community agendas in more explicit ways than in the recent past. In a sense, today’s citizen journalism is the outgrowth of this.

What became known as citizen journalism is the result of the digital era’s democratization of media — wide access to powerful, inexpensive tools of media creation; and wide access to what people created, via digital networks — after a long stretch when manufacturing-like mass media prevailed. Blogging was one of the first major tools in this genre.

As I noted to the researcher who asked, not all citizen media is citizen journalism. Most is not.

As to who coined it first in its current, digital-age meaning, or at least came closest, I’m not sure there either. But I’d start with Oh Yeon Ho, founder of Korea’s OhmyNews, who said back in antiquity (2000) that “Every citizen is a reporter.” Mr. Oh is one of the real pioneers in this arena, as we would all agree.

Again, I suspect someone else was ahead of him, even in this context, because I’ve learned never, ever to say someone was first, at least not when I don’t know for sure.

Of course, there’s a debate about whether “citizen journalism” is an expression we want to use in any case. I strongly believe we do, even though non-citizens of specific places can do journalism and participate in media — and they should — just as much as anyone else. My view of it is citizenship at two levels. I am a citizen of the United States, and proud of that. My journalism will, I hope, help fellow Americans. I am also a global citizen, as in one of the dictionary definitions of the word: “an inhabitant, or denizen” — of planet Earth.

That debate is really a topic for a separate post. The most important thing to remember is the democratization that makes it possible for anyone to be part of the journalistic ecosystem. Increasingly, I believe it’s a civic duty, if such an idea still has meaning.

Meanwhile, if anyone has citations of “citizen journalist” prior to 1985 — surely there are lots of them — post them below or shoot me an email. Let’s try to track down the earliest references.

UPDATE: Jay Rosen is trying to nail down a definition for the expression “citizen journalist” here.

WHY do we need to expect individual initiatives to be sustainable? Is there not merit in the launches of serial enterprises, sequentially launched, within communities, with new ones imparting new vigor, skills and maybe even new goals?

Or, conversely: Is there merit in traditional news organizations anteing up some support for CitJ ventures to build a community information architecture?

My response:

Sustainable does not necessarily mean profitable, or long-lasting. An individual effort is sustainable as long as the person wants it to be, and that’s entirely fine.

I’m interested in seeing that communities have sustainable journalism and information ecosystems, not necessarily in the survival and profitability of individual ones. But institutional knowledge and historical/factual context do matter — and if each new entrant makes all the same mistakes someone else did 10 years earlier, that’s not especially helpful.

I still believe, even now, that traditional media remain in the best position not just to seed these ventures — internally as well as externally — but to make them a linchpin in their own long-term viability.

The Dallas Morning News implores its readers, “Help us examine the lost JFK files.” Why?

Given the volume, we haven’t been able to review most of the files. That’s why were calling on you. Here’s your chance to review never-seen-before materials related to the JFK assassination.

This is a breakthrough in the traditional media — though as Jon Garfunkel notes in his comments below, the implementation leaves a huge amount to be desired.

Some organizations, notably several Gannett papers, have asked for audience help in looking into issues. But as far as I know this is the first time one of them has asked the readers to help analyze a pile of documents.

Nothing new elsewhere, of course; Talking Points Memo has done it many times, to good effect. To see a Big Media company wise up to the audience’s potential, however, is excellent.

Should the DMN pay people who come up with the best material? Yes, as they’d pay freelancers. Complicated, but the right thing to do.

Whether they do or not, this is still a great move.

UPDATED

AP: Media barred from covering Rove speech at prep school. The media have been barred from covering a speech by former presidential adviser Karl Rove to students at a prestigious prep school on Monday.

Please, please, Choate students — blog it. Be the media. Don’t let Rove or your administration get away with this.

(Note: I regret to say, at least right now, that I”m a graduate of this school.)

Update: The school did ultimately allow at least one journalist into the event.

NY TImes: Putting Candidates Under the Videoscope. (T)he embeds have changed the dynamic of this year’s election, making every unplugged and unscripted moment on the campaign trail available for all to see. One particular video shot of American flags tilting over behind Hillary Rodham Clinton last November has been viewed more than 300,000 times on the ABC News Web site. A video of the Fox News host Bill O’Reilly shoving a member of Barack Obama’s staff at a New Hampshire campaign rally has drawn almost 150,000 views on YouTube.

The dynamic was changed earlier, actually — supporters and opponents have been making videos of candidates for some time. What has changed is the notice of this by major media organizations as an endemic part of the process.

What is still not part of the understanding is the sheer unfairness of letting a single moment on video reflect a person’s reality. Yet this is what seems to happen on a regular basis.

When, as in the case of former Sen. George Allen — he of the famous “Macaca” comment — there is a history of racially charged words and deeds, then you have something worth discussing. When it’s simply one of those weird moments on the campaign trail, it’s nothing or close to it.

I could follow anyone reading this with a video camera for an hour and post something on the Web that would make you look ridiculous. You could do the same to me. Neither posting would reflect who we really are.

A culture of gotcha is a shallow culture. Is it the one we really want to promote?

Supporters of “citizen journalism” argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don’t provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn’t journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse. The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.

It is false, of course, that anyone who’s serious about this field argues that it’s entirely accurate or reliable (though it is often independent, and often covers what traditional media can’t or won’t spend time on). In fact, as many of us have been noting for years, accuracy and reliability are key areas for improvement.

Then, having kindly allowed that this new media “has its place” — use the servant’s entrance, please — Hazinski removes it entirely from the realm of journalism, which is literally absurd.

And then, with the kind of hubris that sounds like a lampoon of a Big Media Guy turned professor, he demands that the news industry regulate it all. (Could they first turn some of that regulatory sternness on themselves? More on that in a minute.)

Let’s note the one sound point in his generally bizarre piece: To the extent that traditional media organizations are going to bring their audiences into their journalism processes, they should insist doing things in an honorable and journalistically sound way. If he’d left it at that, Hazinski would have had a reasonable argument. But with dismaying lapses in fact and logic, he goes much further.

For example, consider this:

The premise of citizen journalism is that regular people can now collect information and pictures with video cameras and cellphones, and distribute words and images over the Internet. Advocates argue that the acts of collecting and distributing makes these people “journalists.” This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a “citizen surgeon” or someone who can read a law book is a “citizen lawyer.” Tools are merely that. Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals. Information without journalistic standards is called gossip.

The bogus logic is standard-issue for the naysayers. Unpacking it:

First, no one involved in citizen media is arguing that every posting of a photo, or every blog post, or ever video, is journalism. Nor would we argue that the people doing these things are journalists. But anyone — anyone — can commit an act of journalism using these tools. (And, as Hazinski fails to notice, there’s a heck of a lot of actual, no-kidding journalism going on out there in the blogosphere and other conversational media, some of it by people who have probably never been in a newsroom.)

Hazinski treads on the thinnest ice when he compares journalists with surgeons and lawyers, people who go to school for years and pass extremely difficult tests to earn the right to practice. There has never been such a requirement in journalism — ever. Nor should there be, for several reasons including the fact that a) some of the best journalists have never taken a college course on the subject; b) the skills required are simply not that hard to learn; and c) journalism is not a profession in the sense of being a lawyer or doctor. Journalism is a craft — a valuable and honorable one, but still a craft.

The analogy is absurd even if we pretend that journalism is a profession. We don’t go to the doctor (at least I don’t) to remove a splinter. We take a pin, sterilize it with flame and/or alcohol and remove it ourselves. We have, at some level, done a minor act of surgery.

And we don’t go to a lawyer when we lend money to a relative, or sign some kinds of agreements. We have a contract nonetheless, because some things with legal ramifications are simple enough to do ourselves.

Hazinski proceeds into baffling territory as he continues:

But unlike those other professions, journalism — at least in the United States — has never adopted uniform self-regulating standards. There are commonly accepted ethical principals (sic)— two source confirmation of controversial information or the balanced reporting of both sides of a story, for example, but adhering to the principals (sic) is voluntary. There is no licensing, testing, mandatory education or boards of review. Most other professions do a poor job of self-regulation, but at least they have mechanisms to regulate themselves. Journalists do not.

So without any real standards, anyone has a right to declare himself or herself a journalist. Major media outlets also encourage it. Citizen journalism allows them to involve audiences, and it is a free source of information and video. But it is also ripe for abuse.

The logic of all this (not to mention the spelling; doesn’t the Atlanta newspaper employ copy editors?) is completely escapable.

Having said journalism has standards, all of a sudden journalism really doesn’t have any real standards. Ah, you see, it’s that the standards are not written. Except, of course, that just about every major media organization has an internal code of ethics and behavior (usually in writing), and organizations like the Society of Professional Journalists has elaborately crafted codes, too. Except, as well, that (as Hazinski notes) those other real professions are famous for not enforcing their own rules.

Has Hazinski failed to notice that these abuses are all too common even in traditional media, which (at least most of the Washington variety) have served as stenographers instead of actual journalists? Is he aware that the media have been conned by experts for decades or longer?

Of course citizen media is leading to fakery and cons. The fakers and con artists use whatever works. And, yes, there will be a video that inflames public opinion and turns out to be a fake. There have already been stock swindles based on fake online press releases.

Hazinski’s remedies start off making some sense, at least those applied to the news industry. It’s definitely a good idea for traditional media organizations to verify what goes out under their banners or on their programming. Even better, as he suggests, they should apply those standards to their own work.

It’s also fine to suggest that journalism schools offer courses to citizen journalists. But the granting of certifications is a bit weird. Who’s that for? The media company? People who grant press passes? Beats me.

In the end, taking his logic on yet another S-curve, Hazinski calls for the regulation not just of citizen journalists but all journalists. So who’s going to be responsible for this regulation, anyway? I think he’s asking for self-regulation, which he has acknowleged doesn’t work very well with doctors and lawyers. But he doesn’t really say.

The regulators of speech should be all of us, collectively voting with our eyes, ears and dollars in the fabled marketplace of ideas. New tools coming along will give us better ways to do that in a Digital Age than we’ve had in the analog one, a good thing when the data out there is orders of magnitude greater and, so far, more difficult to sort for the good stuff.

The media industry and journalism educators do have a valuable role to play in all this. It’s to teach media literacy for a media-saturated world. That is not about regulation or do-it-this-way standards. It’s about helping media audiences and creators alike to understand how media and persuasion work.
For journalists, citizen or otherwise, it is very much about principles, and ultimately honor. For the audiences, we need to instill deep, critical thinking and a solid grasp of media techniques.

Let’s regulate ourselves to end up with a diverse, vibrant journalistic ecosystem that serves and informs us.

Dan Froomkin urges, “Citizen Journalists, Start Your Engines!” Without any fanfare, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has started posting preliminary transcripts of many of its hearings on its Web site, giving everyone a chance to pore through testimony and find news the MSM may have overlooked.

This a great step forward, and props to Dan and others who’ve been pushing for it.

Even better would be real-time streaming from all congressional hearings, plus immediate public archiving of those videos. Some folks are working on this, too.

Slowly but surely, the opaque nature of governing is becoming a bit more transparent.