OhmyNews International

When citizen journalists are interviewing people for stories, they should be upfront with their sources about their identity.

In fact, that’s one of the first things I recommend that citizen journalists do – tell your interviewees that you are a citizen journalist submitting items to OhmyNewsInternational, YourHub.com, Associated Content, YouTube or whatever medium you use.

Identifying yourself as a citizen journalist is much like a police officer reading accused criminals their Miranda rights. It is something that should be done before each and every interview.

And it should be a natural thing to do. As a citizen journalist, you aren’t trying to hide what you are doing or trick people into making outrageous statements because they don’t know a “reporter” is in hearing range. You are trying to get the facts of a situation in a fair and unbiased manner.

So again, identify yourself as a citizen journalist before each and every interview.  It will earn you credibility, respect and hopefully a following among your readers and/or viewers.

Susan Cormier is the head coach in charge of training at the National Association of Citizen Journalists (www.nacj.us) and co-author of the “Handbook for Citizen Journalists” (www.citizenjournalistnow.com).

With citizen journalism reigning as one of the primary sources of information, more and more news organizations are reporting information and portraying it as “rough cut.” More and more, they are including citizen videos and photos from onlookers. Many news channels incorporate Twitter segments and Facebook feeds into their live broadcasts.

Now, perhaps they are running short on funds and need to use the citizen news (highly unlikely for CNN and Fox, but who knows?). Perhaps big news companies really do think that the rough footage they are getting is more sincere than other footage. We have certainly seen examples of this dating back to the Vietnam war, when journalists were first embedded with the troops; since then, news corps have used shaky cam footage to get viewers.

However, at this point in time, I would argue that news organizations are using citizen journalists’ footage and information in order to get in on a trend. These companies find social media (including the Twitter, Facebook and blogs of the world) and citizen news style to be a trend that they can make bank cashing in on. In the past, these big news conglomerates thought citizen journalism was encroaching on their territory, but now the tables have turned. Real news needs to stop masquerading as citizen journalism.

Most recently, companies such as the UK Guardian have used a blog style to make their updates from the G20 Summit seem more current. They even have a notice on their page that reads: “This page will update every minute.”

There are enough bloggers out there in the world and the real journalists, as in the journalistic self-proclaimed news corporations, should stick to article writing, not blogging.

In The Missourian, David Rosman recently wrote an article “Despite not being paid, citizen journalists are still professionals.” In the article, David considered how we define a professional and who citizen journalists are. He actually argues that regular, unpaid contributors, the citizen journalists, should also be considered “professionals” if they meet the standards required by recognized news organizations despite many rejections from dictionaries.

How do we define a “professional? “Is he/she the one who must be paid?” (Oxford American Dictionary’s definition) Or, “Is he/she characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of profession?” (Merriam-Webster’s definition) In this changing media environment, “how do we define “being paid” then?” “Does it still mean only a paycheck from an employer or customer?” David Rosman actually made many interesting points on defining professional journalism and citizen journalism in this article.

Despite not being paid, citizen journalists are still professionals (The Missurian)

The big video of the week was the footage shot of Qantas flight A380 of a wing that had been ripped by an exploding engine.

Citizens shot video of gunfire in the town of Reynosa that was related to the continuing drug wars.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is in trouble with the Armenian president over comments made that were videotaped by an unknown source.

Questions are being raised about police conduct during a student demonstration in Dublin.

The official account of the death of Ian Tomlinson at a G20 protest on April 1st last year is being re-examined because of amateur video showing a police officer pushing him to the ground.

And in the realm of the weird…

A couple gets insulted by the officiator during their wedding ceremony.

Video’s been spreading on the internet of the multi-tasking driver.

This post was written by new Texas-based OMNI curator JD Meyer (bohemiotx).

Neighborsgo.com is a citizen journalism/user-generated content website moderated by the Dallas Morning News, the fourth largest news market in the US.

Neighborsgo.com started as print site for citizen journalism in 2005, and it evolved into a website by April 2007 and now has a spot on Facebook. It developed the reverse publishing model, calling it “find,share, and connect.” Subscribers to the regular DMN paper actually get Neighborsgo in their Friday paper. You can also find Neighborsgo in 450 locations. By July 2010, the web edition of Neighborsgo had 22,000 members and over 55,400 stories. The Neighborsgo editors are so cool that they meet every other week at Starbuck’s scattered around the Metroplex. Plus, they really have a gigantic editorial staff–necessary for fact verification.

To write about a citizen journalism in a forum sense, one should become a part of their writing community first to really experience the site. And Neighborsgo.com is a wonderful site!

I submitted a couple of articles about city issues in Tyler, the largest city in East Texas and 100 miles east of Dallas. The Tyler Industry Growth Initiative (IGI) plans on promoting  Tyler’s semi-closeness to Dallas, so writing for Neighborsgo.com seemed like a good thing for a Tyler writer to do. The IGI has ten strategies designed to bring Tyler into the innovation economy era. On the other hand, I protested the conclusions of the Tyler Transit consultants. Moreover, I was born and raised in Dallas, living there for 3/5 of my 51 years.

Regarding the look of the site, you can post a story, photo or video and create a blog, and the major interest categories are Know your neighbor, Focus on faith, Pets, Military, Schools and Making a difference. Besides these six categories, you can find Arts/Entertainment, Business, Food, Sports, Senior Spotlight, In the Classroom, State Fair, Advice, City News, and Transportation.

When you publish an article for neighborsgo.com, you need to enter a community also, such as East Dallas or North Oak Cliff. Besides the DFW area, other entities are part of the community, notably DART (the bus/train serivce) and Jason Castro–American Idol candidate from Rockwall–a suburb northeast of Dallas, and Lenny Kravitz, since he sung in a Lewisville choir, together with something called “Dharma Initiative.” Stephenville, a small city southeast of Dallas, got on the list despite being well away from the Metroplex.

Neighborsgo.com looks like a great site to have on one’s short list of sites for citizen journalism articles if you live near Dallas-Forth Worth. If you don’t live in north or east Texas, then do an Internet search for another major US city that sponsors a citizen journalism/user-generated content section.