CJReport: Citizen Journalism

For the critique of a citizen journalism site I chose to look at CJReport. I was pleasantly surprised at what I found when I got to the site. At first glance it could have passed for the website of a major newspaper. The different story categories at the top along with the Top Story and Recent News Stories categories made it really easy to navigate throughout the material on the site and the design mirrored that which could be found on any major newspapers’ web site such as the New York Times or Washington Post.

Although I liked the design of the site something jumped out at me right away that was a little concerning. It didn’t seem to be updated very frequently. Most of the stories listed under the Top Stories and Recent News Stories were around two weeks old. The newest story was hours away from being three days old at the time I first accessed it. Timeliness is really important in the news world. If I go to a site to find news I am going to expect that what I’m reading is new and current. I would also expect that the type of person who is going to seek out a citizen journalism site would be the kind of person who is actively engaged in keeping up with the news in some capacity. If that were the case, why would they go to a site that is only updated every few days? News is constantly happening and chances are the stories that are being covered on CJReport would have already been covered days earlier on another site. It is fine to have stories on the site that are older, I just wouldn’t have expected them to be posted in the sections designated for top and recent news stories.

As I began to dig through the site I found several other things that I liked and disliked. First, I liked how simple it was to contribute to the site. It was even easier to post on there than it is on the blogger software we use for this blog. All you have to do is click the ‘Create a New Story’ button and type away. There were fields provided right on the story form to insert images or video with clear instructions for the types of formats accepted. In terms of access it is fabulous for someone who is just starting out in citizen journalism or someone who only posts something once in a while.

However, as I began to think about this feature I realized the potential implications it could have. By allowing anyone to post anonymously there is the potential for them to post questionable material. There isn’t a name to hold accountable for the information posted and it makes me a little more wary of the content of the site. In my opinion it makes the site more susceptible to authors making up information, sources, or any number of other things. Sometimes factual errors or other problems with a story can happen accidentaly and having contact information for an author helps to open dialogue between them and the reader to improve the quality of the story and make for better reporting. Allowing anonymity compromises that. Ultimately the integrity of the site could be called into question by not requiring some sort of registration.

This issue arose again when I took a look at the ease of commenting. The anonymous feature extends to comments which are enabled on all the posts I looked at. Anyone could get on the site to spam it or do a wide variety of negative things in the comment section. Although commenting can be a great feature to spark discussion, notify an author of information they may have been missing or that was incorrect, etc. it should be used with caution and there doesn’t seem to be any caution taken on this site. Although I didn’t seem to see any abuse of the commenting section, should the site continue to gain in popularity it is something to be wary of.

With some improvements I believe that this site could emerge as a leader in citizen journalism. It has a great base that it is working with right now and changing a few things around would make it even better.