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Is there really such a thing as Citizen Journalism or is it more Citizen Leads? All major reports are still published around the world by established media organisations. The Iran riots were spread initially on Twitter but they were sent to mainstream organisations to follow through.

Similarly, even established bloggers use the mainstream media for major stories - as with the Guido Fawkes and the Telegraph.

I also notice that there's no mention of defamation and other editorial concerns, only technical here - surely these concerns (including how to tell a good story) are more important than the means you use to broadcast? You can send your message via Twitter, Audioboo and on Flickr, but what's the point if its libellous and told badly?

Aside from the technology of which there are thousands of tools out there to make it easy, the biggest thing that people get wrong is that to "report" on something, rather than just have an opinion about it, means getting out there and getting the information.

Suddenly, the internet is meaningless. You need to go and talk to people, get good, substantiated quotes, supported images (not doctored!), get people on side and to trust you and all the rest of the things that has applied to journalism for 200 years or so.

The internet has allowed people to publish what they write easily and for free, but it does not give them the skills and process of journalism. That is the advice I think most people are hungry for!

Note About Audio Broadcasts

I was a recording engineer for many years working for both the private sector and even the Beeb (as a client). The one thing I struggle with most on the internet is audio quality - it is quite frankly often abysmal.

The reason behind this is the idea that digital = quality. This has been a myth since digital devices were first released and there was plenty of, umm, liberties taken with the truth! (This has also been true with vinyl romantics, to be fair).

The main thing that digital recording offers is ease of use, but the quality of a recording will be far more to do with the quality of the hardware (microphones and so on) and how you use them.

For any recording audio, here are some hints:

• Purchase the highest quality microphone you can with a good . Reasonable mics start from 50 to 100 pounds, though be warned that top pro mics are £2000 or more!


• Record in a small room with at least some sound damping. Sound Proofing stops external sounds getting in (or you getting out) whereas sound damping stops the room sounding too much like a bathroom. Hanging heavy blankets or duvets around can help!


• Sit comfortably, leaning forward at a desk with the mic around 8 inches or so in front of you and slightly above the line to your mouth.


• PRINT your script - reading from a screen does not work. Space out the print nicely in a large font making sure that sentences do not wrap over page turns. If you are editing later, stop at the end of the page and change sheets rather than try and do it quietly.


• Rehearse! We used the best voice overs in the world at the studios and they ALL rehearsed. There is no such thing as over rehearsing either. As you rehearse, mark up your script, underlining words that need to be emphasised or putting slashes where a pause would feel natural.


• Remember you are selling something. Even a news item is a bit of advertising, except it is selling an idea or story rather than a product. Do not waffle, do not mutter, project and speak evenly and dont rush! Even the top line shock jocks, when you listen to them, are very careful with making sure that they are clear and understandable. You can sound amazingly out of control, without actually speeding up, if you are clever.

There are loads of things to remember and learn, and it is worth learning it all. A well crafted, well thought out piece, whether it is celebrity gossip, or a Pulitzer winning political piece, will always win over the hastily put together, lazily produced bit of rubbish.

There's another reason not to use Facebook, for video at least - beware of onerous copyright terms. Although they still allow you to retain the copyright on images, they grant themselves full rights to distribute and pass, and commercially exploit any of the images you post on facebook, in perpetuity. The same is also true of Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú photo competitions, while Twitter and Flickr still allow you full rights, and strictly limit their own rights. A pro could therefore feel much safer using Twitter and Flickr, for the time being, that is... You are never safe from unlawful piracy though.

S/he should also check out Newsvine


‘Newsvine is a community-powered, collaborative journalism news website which draws content from its users and syndicated content from mainstream sources such as The Associated Press. Users can write articles, seed links to external content, and discuss news items submitted by both users and professional journalists.’

I'm not a big fan of BT, by any means, but are we not missing a trick here? BT FON seems to be everywhere, and as long as you are a customer, you can use it for free.So get an IPod touch and use the wifi wherever you go. It seems to be everywhere and show me a mobile operator who has coverage like this



My own town is saturated-ok, the rates are not great (512kbps) but judging by the feedback on O2, its up there with 3G data rates? And its free?

Darn,
Link is broken-try this

Audio recording:

Probably the best microphone available for the most affordable price, is the Shure SM57 (normally around £80). It has been an industry standard for decades, in both music recording, and broadcasting. It has even been widely used on the podium for presidential speeches. For simply recording speech (as opposed to music) there is no need to get a more expensive mic than this. It is a cardioid, dynamic mic.

However, the mic is not the only factor in determining sound quality, and without a decent soundcard and pre-amp the benefits of a good mic may be a bit pointless. The extra money you might spend on these might make you reconsider whether its worth the outlay, when sound quality is not the most important factor for citizen journalism.

"It's faster but more restrictive than e-mail as you can only send to someone with the same Dropbox account."

Oh so not true! Dropbox has a feature called shared folders. If you share a given folder in your dropbox with several people with DB accounts, the contents will sync to all of them.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Although, the citizen journalism will prosper, the overall consequences for professional journalism will not be so prosperous. User-generated video has received much of the hype lately and especially live video (, ... there are a lot of me-too services to choose from). But, when did you last see the the good newsworthy video made by a citizen journalist? They are not easy to find from the sea of viral hoax videos and yellow DIY journalism. All that has happened is that the whole professional video producing scene will cease to exist. In this world it is all about the clicks and visitors. User-generated video will have a same devastating effect as blogs and internet had for press news media. The history will repeat itself - now for the TV news, sadly :(