PR Squared: Joe Sixpack: Citizen Journalist

The old chestnut, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," is probably the best way to describe recent announcements by both Gannett and the NY Times that these august news organizations will be restructuring themselves and their content engines to take advantage of consumers' growing interest in the creative process.

At the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, NYT publisher Arthur Sulzburger, Jr. noted the difficulties of vetting the work of amateurs. True enuff. The credibility of the Gray Lady is at risk with every line of text that's allowed on its site. The content produced by "amateurs" may be valuable, and it certainly engages the passion of these citizen journalists (passion which drives increased page views, which drives advertising revenue), but, it can be difficult to manage the quality, credibility, authenticity, and volume.

As described in this article by a Gannett exec, a great example of both the benefits and challenges of embracing citizen journalism occurred this summer, when The News-Press (Fort Myers, FL) asked its readers to investigate complaints of exorbitant fees being charged for connecting newly-constructed homes to water/sewer lines:

"The response overwhelmed the paper ... Readers spontaneously organized their own investigations: Retired engineers analyzed blueprints, accountants pored over balance sheets, and an inside whistle-blower leaked documents showing evidence of bid-rigging ... For six weeks the News-Press generated more traffic to its website than ever before ... In the end, the city cut the utility fees by more than 30 percent, one official resigned, and the fees [became] the driving issue in [an upcoming]."

Sounds amazing, right? Power to the people, yea! This was good news for The News-Press, too --- the passionate response drove far greater readership than normal.

But there are dangers to be concerned about:

Amateurs are still amateurs --- the rules of professional conduct, sourcing, attribution, and ethics do not apply to Joe Sixpack, no matter how well meaning he may be as he engages in quixotic quests for truth.

There's no consistency to consumer passion --- a lack of reliability that limits any traditional newspaper's ability to completely re-architect its business model in favor of Social Media. (Sure, passions were enflamed by the malfeasance of Fort Myers officials and contractors. But would those same thousands of volunteers have shown up to cover a town council meeting?)

If the "mob" was dead wrong, whose reputation would suffer? What if 20 out of 1,000 of the citizen journalists in the Fort Myers episode had found evidence that those outsized fees were within industry norms? Would their evidence have been swamped by the mob? What if a dirty contractor enlisted 50 cronies to post bogus research? Would the The News-Press have the resources to assign professional journalists to look into these counter-claims, despite their paltry signal:noise ratio?

I applaud the embrace of consumer-generated content by America's leading publishers. It's a welcome sign that they have taken a hard look at how to boost revenues and achieve sustainable relevance. I would just caution anyone who relishes in this trend to remember ...

The more open we become, the more open we become to hard-edged, noisy special interest groups and spammers of all stripes. The mainstream media has always served as a sensible filter against zealotry, and that's one role that cannot be abdicated.

Tags: nytimes, web2.0conference, arthur+sulzburger, wired, infoworld, social+media, cgm, news-press