The journalist, the community reporter and the public: a model for collaboration in local UK newspapers

Lily Canter, PhD student, The University of Sheffield

“There is a role for professional journalism and a role for citizen journalism. The future belongs

to both. It is not an either/or.”

Keith Perch, Editor Leicester Mercury, May 2011

Leicester Mercury Citizens’ Eye

Established as a newspaper 1874 Established 2008 as a website

Flagship Northcliffe Media newspaper and website (DMGT Group)

Community news: Reporting by the people (independent)

Newspaper readership: 54,000Website monthly unique users: 388,000 (ABC figures , March 2011)

Website views: 20,000 a month

Local news in Leicester + surrounding area Issue related news in Leicestershire

60 editorial staff 450 volunteers

www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk www.citizenseye.org

Theoretical frameworkTo what extent is a new form of collaborative journalism emerging in local British newspapers under Web 2.0?

How is Web 2.0 impacting on the role of journalists as traditional gatekeepers?

•Retaining gatekeeping via moderation (Hermida and Thurman, 2008; Ornebring, 2008; Deuze, 2006;)

•Redefining gatekeepers as sense-makers (Singer, 2010; Newman, 2009)

• Sharing the gates (Paulussen, 2007; Gillmor, 2006)

Pilot collaboration model

WAVE supplementBranded weekly pageBranded newspaper

contentWebsite content

Text

Video

Audio

Photos

Citizens’ Eye feeding Leicester Mercury

brands

Rules of engagementLeicester Mercury Citizens’ Eye

Journalist moderation Setting own news agenda

Accuracy upheld Responsible for checksBranded as citizen journalism Flexibility over style

No automatic right to publication Cover unreported news

Hard news covered by journalists May complement hard news coverage

High level reporting Low level reportingCourt cases Charity/community events

City council meetings Ward meetingsInvestigative journalism Self-interest newsMajor events and breaking news* Vox pops

High profile interviews Opinions

* These can be complemented by citizen journalists providing additional material such as eyewitness accounts, video, audio and photography

Sub editor writes headlines

Branded as citizen journalism

Photos by Citizens’ Eye

Self interest news

Low level reporting

Hard news followed up by journalists

News desk dictate page no.

Flexibility in style

News agenda set by Citizens’ Eye

“As long as we are printing what hopefully is the best, most competent, most experienced, most colourful, most compelling version of events then we should be alright. That’s the

trick isn’t it?”

Leicester Mercury reporter, October 2010

ReferencesCastells, M. (2001) The Internet Galaxy. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Deuze, M. (2006) Participation, remediation, bricolage: Considering principal components of a digital culture. The Information Society, 22(2), 63-75.

Gillmor, D. (2006) We the Media: Grassroots journalism by the people for the people. Farnham, O’Reilly.

Hermida, A. and N. Thurman (2008) A clash of cultures: An integration of user-generated content within professional journalistic frameworks at British newspaper websites. Journalism Practice, 2(3), 343-56.

Jarvis, J. (2008) Supermedia. BuzzMachine [online]. Available from: http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/06/06/supermedia/ [Accessed 10th June 2010].

Jenkins, H. (2008) Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York, New York University Press.

Newman, N. (2009) The rise of social media and its impact on mainstream journalism. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism [online]. Available from: http://thomsonreuters.com/content/media/white_papers/487784 [Accessed 21st June 2010].

O’Reilly, T. and J. Batetelle (2009) Web Squared: Web 2.0 five years on. Web 2.0 Summit [online]. Available from: http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/public/schedule/detail/10194 [Accessed 10th March 2010].

Ornebring, H. (2008) The consumer as producer- of what? Journalism Studies, (9)5, 771-85.

Paulussen, S. et al. (2007) Doing it together: Citizen participation in the professional news making process. Observatorio, 1(3), 131-54.

Singer, J. B. (2009) Quality control. Journalism Practice, 4(2), 127-42.