Bergermj’s Weblog

CNN, never one to allow itself to be too far behind in the trends, has decided to tap into the citizen journalism realm with a posting site called “iReport.”  (BTW, Mac should sew for the name–we all know that they have the market cornered on “i”-franchises).

Anyways, the site–as defined by this recent update–will allow users to post videos, photos, and audio files.  I guess it’s a sign of the times.  These news businesses have to be very sensitive to the public trends in news gathering–or else, they might get left behind (as newspapers are).  It will be interesting to see how iReport ends up.  I wonder how serious users will be when posting  to the site.

This article is a pretty mediocre stab at that effluence of the public, citizen journalism. I do like, however, how the author relates the movement to human rights and democracy. The example given, related to S. Korea, rings true as to the spirit behind citizen journalist efforts. The author them procedes to fail when she tries to tackle the “Journalism or not” issue. This little argument about what is journalism or not is about as old, torn, and worthless as the “art or not” question. Such a topic is the stuff of bored philosophers and jaded academics–people with nothing better to do than argue about identifying a media rather that experiencing it. Point of my little rant: the author should have left that little subtopic out of the article.

Finally, the last part encourages readers to join the movement. This is noble I guess. Wish the author would have given the readers sites to use or access more information from. Overall, not sure I’d recommend this article, now that I think about it.