I have been hugely remiss in not bookmarking and regularly reading Tish Grier’s blog, The Constant Observer, something that was hammered home when I read her post Santa Rosa TV Station Forces Citizens to Become Journalists.
She pulls no punches in her disdain for media owners — such as ClearChannel — who are using the concept of citizen journalism to cut costs or make money by harvesting free local content. Here’s a taste:
I’m sick of the hype that says citizen journalism is “all the rage” when only a handful of people across the country are doing it, and only a subset of that are doing it as a concerted and journalistic effort. I’m sick of cynical news agencies wanting to “harvest” user generated content, absorb online discussions to try to make them into “news” for some other reason than including people in their conversaion. I’m sick an industry that doesn’t want to develop people into top-notch journalists like it did in the old days that it loves to allude to so very much…
This is something that has been much on my mind for a while now. I’m no lawyer, but when I read the terms of service for any number of sites that rely on “user contributions,” there is usually phrasing in there that suggests the owners of those sites have the right to licence or sell hosted work. The term “perpetual” comes up a lot, and there is no mention I can find of shared profit. The cynic in me is suspect.
The increasing number of invitations to “submit your stuff” to legacy media sites, also brings out the cynic in me: the media gets the content; the contributor gets to feel good about being published.
From Tish:
…People have just begun to express themselves online, to have conversations out in the open and among more than a few friends at the bar, diner, or kitchen table. We are only now learning how to use media. Some folks are good at it, some aren’t. We need time and the freedom to develop our own projects, learn to use media on our own timetable, not be forced into it by news agencies–both print and broadcast–because of some kind of hype and falling revenues.
It’s not likely that the call for “user content” is going to end any time soon, though. Maybe what’s need is an increased effort to educate those providing the content with the rights they (may or may not) by giving up, and the value of what they are doing. At the very least, there is a moral obligation on the part of owners of sites that rely on user contributions to spell out in detail the issue of rights and payment.
RELATED: Stewart Pittman has some thoughts on the ClearChannel case, too.
TAGS: CITIZEN JOURNALISM
