Do citizen journalism websites provide a service or content?Posted by Cody Kitaura on June 5th, 2010
Earlier this week, local community-based journalism site Sacramento Press learned of campaign fliers that cited an opinion piece appearing on its site. The fliers, which slam a Sacramento City Council candidate, simply quote “Sacramento Press” as saying local residents are “being hoodwinked, bamboozeled, led astray, run amok as it appears District One candidate, Angelique Ashby, goes with the Hustle and Flow of dirty politics.”
Sacramento Press staff members were quick to distance themselves from the fliers, writing in a prominently featured post, entitled “Political campaign fliers NOT from The Sacramento Press,”
The Sacramento Press had no part in it. We did not print the mailers. We did not write those words.
The post, written by managing editor Colleen Belcher, goes on to stress that the Sacramento Press “did not write or solicit the article.”
Now, a step back for those not familiar with Sacramento Press. The site has several editorial interns and paid staffers, which it identifies with small icons next to the poster’s name. But the site is based largely on community contributions. That is, anyone can post almost anything on the site – like the opinion piece quoted by the fliers. It’s a bold concept, and the site has received agood deal of attention. In a comment responding to discussion (including comments I posted) on the campaign fliers story, co-founder Ben Ilfield had this to say about the site’s policies:
Sounds nice, but this use makes it seem like this was an editorial or perhaps reporting. It was neither.This kind of misleading tactic could be used for anyone who supports anything to simply write an opinion piece on the site and then produce a flier that
Inspiration: My grandpa’s vintage press passes
It’s easy to focus on how much journalism has changed in the past decade or so, and it’s a topic I love discussing. But I sometimes find myself forgetting the long history that a lot of publications and organizations have. For instance, I work for a paper that has published for more than 100 years.My grandfather, who passed a couple years ago (while I was still in j-school), was a former cameraman for NBC. He worked in New York state, Chicago and Burbank, but I don’t know a lot of details about what he did. I was cleaning out a few things at my parents’ house over the weekend and found a big bag with a bunch of random press passes.
