A citizen journalist beat them to it. Streaming live in front of the Ecuadorian embassy in London while police are thought to arrest Julian Assange Thursday early morning and BBC was nowhere to be seen.
Citizen journalist James Albury streamed live via Bambuser as police started to surround the Ecuadorian embassy where Julian Assange is holed up after seeking political asylum The Age writes.
visionOnTV tweeted that those asking for a livestream from BBC should watch the livestream put out by Mr Albury because BBC were not there.
If we allow ourselves to look past the politics that is going on here for a bit and look at what is happening to the media.
Again progression is actioned by citizens and not by those who have been doing news for decades, even centuries.
What we are witnessing is similar to what is happening with the entertainment industry. The consumers know what they want, they voiced their wants very loudly, but was ignored. This lead to an uprising where a lot of consumers felt they had the right to enjoy music, films, etc without having to pay for it.
Slowly we are now seeing services which cater for the digital consumer, easy access for a reasonable price. Yet there is a long way to go, due to archaic copyright laws.
The same is now happening with news media. Consumers are sick of sensationalist and shallow news stories, only put out there to make their advertisers happy.
The result of this frustration is an increase of citizen journalists and the growing legitimisation of this type of reporting.
What are your thoughts on this?
Technology enables massive decentralization that Govs have used for centuries. Govs are obsolete but won’t face it or are fighting it.
Technology has made decentralization obsolete. Problem is that Govs refuse to face that fact or are fighting it.
As a former mainstream media reporter, I’d like to say your analysis of why consumers are fed up with traditional news media is very likely spot on — especially the bit about publishing puff pieces for the sole purpose of making their advertisers happy. Editorial departments have been stripped to the bone and beyond; most have very little in the way of staff to send out to dig into things, and the people now in charge of those departments are by and large those who can be guaranteed not to rock any boats.
So I think citizen journalists have a good chance of filling in the gaps that are now so pathetically lacking in mainstream media.
However, I’m seeing some of these citizen reporters obviously ill at ease when it comes to asking questions (giving the interviewee a chance to spin them like a top), while others bark out questions and don’t give the interviewee a chance to respond (thus making the reporter sound like an ass), and still others ask questions of the “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?” persuasion (making it clear that the reporter has already made up his/her mind that the interviewee is guilty of … something. Anything).
But early “old” media was no different. And these people are willing to get up in the wee hours and go hang out in places that the rest of us can’t get to. Since the “real” media aren’t there, it’s good to know that somebody IS.
Thank you for your very interesting comment!
I fully agree with you regarding how some citizen journalists approach a story and especially their interviewees. As someone pointed out to me on twitter, they need to become more neutral and unemotional.
As I discussed in another post, if you are unable to provide comments from both sides of a story, at least provide variance to add some balance.
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