Thursday 7 May 2009

CITIZEN JOURNALISM AND NEWS GATHERING TOOLS

Keeping Stock is in a bit of a lather over the fact that TVNZ is using twitter to solicit pictures and comments about the Napier police shooting. He is outraged. We are not. New gathering is legitimate and twitter is just the new tool of the day. It is no different than getting people to phone in from incidents like we used to in broadcasting in the early 80's.
Welcome to citizen journalism.

3 comments:

Inventory2 said...

BB - I have two concerns here. The first is that TVNZ is actually asking for "pictures and video of the shooting" - I have no problem with TVNZ soliciting eye-witness accounts. However a broadcaster soliciting and collecting material which may actually form evidence in a prosecution is, IMHO a different matter altogether. If TVNZ can get its own cameras into an area and shoot footage, that's fine. But I was concerned that TVNZ may actually circumvent (either by accident or design) the judicial process. If people have relevant video or photographs, surely the right course of action is to make them available to the police.

obrien said...

 
"if it bleeds, it leads" — or so goes the conventional mantra

Blame the viewers . . .

FAIRFACTS MEDIA said...

Well, with the way things are going, the media won't have any journos and the news will be relying on contributions from the public.
Plus whatever the paid spinmeisters give them.