What is a citizen journalist?

First, a confession. I still haven't got round to trying out the video camera I blogged two months ago about buying. I'm obviously not a natural citizen journalist.

Which brings me to the question that has been pre-occupying me over the past few weeks as I discuss it with my students. What is a citizen journalist? Is the term citizen journalism interchangeable with the term user generated content (UGC)? What of grassroots journalism and participatory journalism? And is hyperlocal journalism a form of citizen journalism? Are blogs citizen journalism? Is Facebook a form of citizen journalism, as one of my students suggested in her blog this week?

There is, of course, no shortage of commentators trying to debate answers to these questions. But as is so often the case in discussions about new media, boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred. Maybe trying to define anything in this area is pointless, as everything shifts constantly.


But I'll attempt it anyway. I would argue that the term "citizen journalism" (or any other description coupled with the word "journalism") implies an intentional element of civic or public service on the part of the writer, similar to traditional definitions of the journalistic ideal. So for example, amateur contributors writing for websites investigating wrongdoing or challenging powerful interests could be termed citizen journalists.

But readers uploading pictures to their local paper of a jolly day out in the snow are not citizen journalists. They are, however, providing the paper with user generated content, in other words content produced by amateurs/readers, rather than professional journalists. As citizen journalists are also amateurs, you could argue that all citizen journalism is user generated content. But not all user generated content is citizen journalism because it doesn't have that necessary element of journalistic and public service intention. Millions of people blog or tweet or use Facebook or run websites or upload comments to news websites with no desire to be seen or to operate as journalists.

What of entrepreneurs without a journalistic background who launch and run hyperlocal websites like for example William Perrin of Kings Cross Environment or James Hatts of London SE1? Are they citizen journalists? They are definitely doing what local journalists traditionally do, challenging big developers, finding out things other people don't want them to know. But face-to-face, they stress that they're not journalists. Arguably though, they have journalistic intentions and could therefore be called citizen journalists. Whether they want to be called that is another matter.

Journalists as entrepreneurs - easier said than done

What are the most useful things we can teach our journalism students? According to publishing entrepreneur and fomer Telegraph writer Jack Roberts, editor of Bad Idea, the list should include: how to come up with a new idea and draw up a business plan, how to do cash flow projections and how to market and advertise themselves and their product. (Which of course is "hyperlocal", the buzzword of the moment, and done on a shoestring).

All good stuff. This is what 2010's going to be about. There's no way anyone's going to get their foot in the door in this industry as it is now unless they put themselves about and come up with new ideas. But I don't mind betting that I wasn't the only one at the Association for Journalism Educators' workshop on journalists as entrepreneurs today who has never had anything to do with business plans or cash flows. Yes, most of us have been freelance at some stage in our careers but planning didn't go much further than the next story pitch or commission. More hand to mouth than five year cash flow projection.

This could be the big problem with trying to teach our students how to be more entrepreneurial. The elephant in the room is that we've never done it ourselves. We've never needed to. Many of today's journalism lecturers started their careers at a time when the business model was to find a staff job with a local newspaper or trade paper and move steadily up to the nationals, again on a staff contract. Then we moved to a second career, yet again on a permanent lecturing contract. Not much entrepreneurial drive needed there. Some job planning skills, maybe but not the creation of a completely new idea from scratch, searching for funding and generating audiences and advertising revenue.

Guest speakers James Hatts, editor of hyperlocal site London Se1.co.uk. Jack Roberts of Bad Idea and Danny Miller, publisher of film magazine and website Little White Lies were impressive examples of what relatively recent graduates can achieve. But all of them seemed to be natural entrepreneurs, seized with the determination to make an idea work. Not all students are like that. Neither are all lecturers. 2010's going to be a busy year.