News is hard to find on a daily basis. I took a phone
video camera out for a news search. I learned I had
some camera orientation tendency problems. News, though?
You decide if you want to see this on a daily basis.
Video by Rachel Seymour on a Nokia N73 cell phone.
I am a college student, which means I am broke. I buy the cheapest items, and when I can get something free, I do.
So, when I went to get a new phone, I naturally wanted the cheapest one. As of right now cheap cell phones don’t equal video camera capabilities. Shucks. How am I going to become a talented citizen journalist without one, though?
Wait, people aren’t thinking about citizen journalism when they purchase their cell phones. They are thinking about how cool it will be to get incriminating video of their drunken friends. In non-college student cases, they might be excited about video of their kids or grandkids.
Why aren’t they thinking about citizen journalism? Because news doesn’t gather itself up and drop at your feet.
I can walk around all week looking for news and end up with the same video shown here.
If I am lucky, I can catch one of the million false fire alarms on campus to report – like anyone cares to watch several of those on a daily basis.
Citizen journalism takes place during emergencies, natural or otherwise, that affect mass amount of people. Citizen journalists add to the rich, personal view point of mass media news.
But, last time I checked, massive disasters don’t happen on a regular daily basis, at least not in Lawrence, Kan.
When a microburst hit the town in the spring of 2006, The Lawrence Journal-World posted citizen journalists' photos online. People wanted to see the extent of the destruction. The amount of photos by a variety of people rolled in to display just how extensive the damage was around town.
Citizen journalism helped enrich the coverage, but it didn't replace it. Citizen journalism alone wouldn't have done justice.
Good citizen journalism equals large scale destruction. Not the day to day life.
After all, I tried finding news on a simple day-to-day time frame.
Until Armageddon hits, citizen journalists can stick to helping erich coverage of large scale disasters.