British study finds Blogs not trusted for news
The BBC are reporting on a recent British study that shows that people put more trust in traditional news that websites or blogs. While many may proclaim this to be a victory for traditional print news and the nightly television newscast, the really interesting thing to look at is probably not being reported yet.
As time progresses, are these numbers growing, shrinking or staying steady. As a snap shot of right now, it's fine but what the television News Director of today, or the Newspaper Publisher wants to know is, what direction are these figures moving? What about younger viewers? What would the same survey report in 6 months time, or 5 years time?
It is an extreme position to say that blogs or citizen journalism will replace traditional media, most of the content of blogs is comments and discussion on stories generated from traditional media. A few months ago many of us who write on this blog heard about how the BBC recived thousdands of images of the London Bombings from ordinary people's mobile phones before the first 'official' cameraman made it to the scene.
At the time we said the next stage of citizen journalism will be when a blog breaks a major story - and already this is starting to happen. The BBC story above mentions a recent story about British Deputy PM John Prescott broke on a blog. The questions about the legitamacy and ethics of '2:37' Director Muralli K Thaluri have been alive on Australian blogs for several months before being given a level of legitamacy by The Australian over the weekend. A real turning point will be when a 'Watergate' sized scandal is discovered by a citzen journalist.
To think that blogs will replace any existing form of media is a simplisitc view. The television did not kill the radio, radio did however change significantly, video didn't kill television and neither did it kill the radio star. The future in the relam is truly a cross platform scenario. The news will still be created in the same way, but it will be distributed through more channels and have more options for the audience to interact, question and challenge.
As time progresses, are these numbers growing, shrinking or staying steady. As a snap shot of right now, it's fine but what the television News Director of today, or the Newspaper Publisher wants to know is, what direction are these figures moving? What about younger viewers? What would the same survey report in 6 months time, or 5 years time?
It is an extreme position to say that blogs or citizen journalism will replace traditional media, most of the content of blogs is comments and discussion on stories generated from traditional media. A few months ago many of us who write on this blog heard about how the BBC recived thousdands of images of the London Bombings from ordinary people's mobile phones before the first 'official' cameraman made it to the scene.
At the time we said the next stage of citizen journalism will be when a blog breaks a major story - and already this is starting to happen. The BBC story above mentions a recent story about British Deputy PM John Prescott broke on a blog. The questions about the legitamacy and ethics of '2:37' Director Muralli K Thaluri have been alive on Australian blogs for several months before being given a level of legitamacy by The Australian over the weekend. A real turning point will be when a 'Watergate' sized scandal is discovered by a citzen journalist.
To think that blogs will replace any existing form of media is a simplisitc view. The television did not kill the radio, radio did however change significantly, video didn't kill television and neither did it kill the radio star. The future in the relam is truly a cross platform scenario. The news will still be created in the same way, but it will be distributed through more channels and have more options for the audience to interact, question and challenge.
In a way this is a cicular process, 50 years ago the number of people who read the paper daily was much higher, and I'm guessing the art of writing to the editor was more common place. In the traditional news to blog interface, the same social activity is returning. The mass letter to the editor is with us, except this time the editor doesn;t get to choose as much which letters get published.
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