True Citizen Journalism

Out of all of the citizen journalism links, the CNN iReport was the most intriguing—mainly because I’ve heard many positive things about it and CNN is one of the rare news sources I turn to when I want to be informed about issues concerning the world. For this reason, I then visited the iReport website and the first thing I saw were pictures that acted as links to different stories. I thought this was a clever way to draw people into the site because I think it’s more interesting this way with pictures instead of a list of different stories. I think it sparks curiosity and makes people want to know more; as it did with me.

The second thing I noticed about the site is the banner at the top of the page that explains the site. It emphasizes the fact that the site is open to written stories from anyone and they are not edited or altered. Below, there is link that allows users to upload their own stories, pictures or videos. I liked this aspect of the website because it makes it clear that the website does what a real citizen journalism blog is supposed to do—provide a place for everyday people to have a voice and write about stories they feel are newsworthy.

When I looked at the individual stories, the subject matter ranged from politics to posts about the Academy Awards. This signaled to me that website welcomes a diverse group of users that are passionate about different things. There was also a range of writing styles with the stories. There are some stories that are written with more of journalistic voice—for example, most of the stories concerning Obama’s agenda, the economy and events/issues that pertained to a certain region of the country. But, then there were stories that more casually written and sounded more like opinion pieces. Most of the stories included this style and some examples were stories about animal cruelty, the affects of the recession and pop culture/entertainment.

Some issues are that some of the accuracy of some of the information that is addressed in the stories cannot be checked with all the stories. I only saw a few stories that included links to the places where they received their information from. Unless you are expressing your opinion, I think it is necessary for users to include links to where they are hearing or reading information from. This reassures that the information is credible and not something someone is making up. Also, there were some spelling and grammatical errors with some of the stories. However, this is something that is expected because the website does not modify the stories.

While, some stories are written like articles, I don’t know if I would consider this website informative. I don’t think it is somewhere you should turn to as a source of world news. Instead, I think it is a place where people can be free to discuss the issues they feel are important that may not be found on news sites or news shows on television. This websites gives the people the opportunity to sound-off about whatever they please. The site is informative in the sense that you can read about an array of topics and subjects that you may not read on a news site. But, because many of the stories have are opinion-based, the “news” is being reported differently—you’re going to get it from a particular perspective instead of strictly-factual details that you find in unbiased standard news stories; therefore, certain things may be left out and you aren’t getting the entire story. You will get some level of news and understanding of what is going on in the world. But, it won’t be the same as reading about news from a standard news site because you’ll only be reading about the details that the author chooses to included, contrary to the way standard news stories are written, which is to include all aspects of the story.

With all of that said, I don’t think that this is necessarily a negative aspect. iReport stresses that it is controlled by users and the issues they want to talk about. After all, that’s what makes it different from standard news sites. There will be bias and voice. The purpose of the site is to not only inform; but to provide people with a place to express their thoughts and have control over what is being reported and said.