I don’t specifically have an interest in the future of professional journalism, only in how it intersects with citizen journalism, but the topic has generated some interesting debate of late after the recent Future of Journalism summit. It has spawned a blog post on The Age website and a special episode of ABC’s Media Watch, which you can either watch or view a transcript of.
It’s interesting that there are some experts who see a future where armies of citizen journalists will work alongside a select band of journalists and editors in bringing the world its news. Personally I don’t see this as the point of citizen media – it has different aims and ambitions to the mainstream media and the opportunities it presents might be lost if the media landscape was to function in this way.
As I said in the previous post it is good to see content emerging from bloggers that is interesting and authentic and free from the sanitization of the mainstream media. An example of this I’ve uncovered recently is Molly’s Monday Machinations which is a vodcast that appears to be presented from the creator’s bedroom. It’s never going to replace The Footy Show or Before The Game but it is a highly informative and comprehensive program from a passionate fan of Australian rules football. But the point is that the lack of production values make it more authentic and consequently more interesting. Molly is the type of guy you might strike up a conversation with on the way home on the train and dissect the game with, and to have this point of view disseminated within the media landscape is what makes citizen media cool.
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