06.26.07
It’s All (still) About Social Media
More than a month ago I posted on how Social Media is making us become less social in a way. It’s been like some kind of revival and Social Media still remains such a hot topic - everyone is talking about it. Biz-Community.com recently addressed it in their newsletter - and are ironically getting a journalist to report on just how much of a threat Social Media could be to the “average traditional journalist”. The topic of the convo will be based around “Are journalists dying breeds?”.
IMO - it depends on how the traditional journalists make use of the “new social journalist”. That is what Social Media represents, is it not? Your average Joe Blog is the new journalist. It’s called “Citizen Journalism“.
Is it not ironic how many people deem an average blog post by Joe Blog to ring more true than a reputable newspaper? With Blogging it no longer matters where the information is coming from - to an extent.
But traditional journalists need not fear Citizen Journalists IMO, as instead of “chasing the story”, “the story” will be brought straight to them. To their ‘inbox’ and to their favourite RSS reader by means of RSS feeds. If they know where to look.
I read a story a while ago on just this - Citizen Journalism, where in Europe this is exactly how journalists are acquiring their stories. First hand news (well almost). They’ve learned to tune into and make use of this phenomenon and get it straight from the proverbial horses’ mouth. Something happens, you blog about it, a good reporter finds it (or has already identified a good ‘Citizen Journalist’ & subscribed to it).
So no, fear not the Citizen Blogger. If you’re a journalist - use it to your advantage!
However, there is a time that you should “fear” Citizen Bloggers: And that is when your reputation is at stake.