Citizen journalism: usare con cautela

Riportiamo qui la notizia relativa a due episodi relativi al Citizen Journalism e al tema della sua supervisione quando in gioco entra il nome di un Main Media.

CNN, CBS take citizen journalism hits

The big question for publishers enamored with citizen journalism is how much credibility they might lose when someone posts questionable content. Two recent incidents put citizen journalism filtering under the microscope. In a citizen report on CNN's iReport, someone said Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a heart attack, leading other sites such as Silicon Alley Insider to pick up the news — which hit Apple stock hard (before it recovered when the news turned out to be false). CNN pulled down the report and is cooperating with an investigation by the SEC into stock manipulation. Former CNN Headline News anchor Renay San Miguel wrote that her former company would be more likely to vet iReports in the future, and that it was making a mistake by running them "unfiltered." ReadWriteWeb's Sarah Perez said the incident was one where "citizen journalism just failed."

But PaidContent's Staci Kramer noted that this was not the first test of citizen journalism, and that people have used Yahoo finance boards and other online venues to spread false rumors for years. "CNN and other media outlets providing space for unfettered contributions inevitably tied to their own reputations need to spend even more time thinking about how to handle what shows up there," Kramer wrote. "But it's up to us as journalists and sharers of information to decide how we make use of any unsubstantiated reports." Meanwhile, even having filters in place isn't a guarantee of keeping unwanted content off citizen journalism sites. CBS Eyemobile was caught running porn pictures on its site, and AdMob pulled its ads until the situation was rectified. While CBS does have a moderator on the site, it will have to "redouble our efforts in this regard," the company told AdAge.