Citizen Journalist

Citizen journalist was a phrase heard a lot a couple of years ago. I think it was meant to signify the rising number of members of the public exposing things via blogs whether true or not and without the safeguards and checks of a newspaper. Readers of this blog will note I only expose my love of sausages and vodka martinis. 

The world of social media has move on quickly with micro blogging and photo sharing sites coming to prominence. Everyone has an opinion and loves to share it on twitter. This is mainly a good thing, I really enjoyed seeing the photos of the storms and high tides in the Isle of Man. It's just a pity that some stray away from this and get into muck raking and libel. The case of the recently deceased Lord McAlpine and those who tweeted and retweeted libellous allegations against him when he was alive show that a limited knowledge of libel laws and other aspects of court reporting laws is needed before striking out into the world of self publishing and a quick look at any comment section of online publications reveals a lack of knowledge does not hold anyone back.

Into this world leaps Isle of Man Newspapers with their kind offer for their readers to contribute directly to their publications with only "light editing". A journalist would normally have a few sources to help provide leads or back ground to articles. The recession has been tough for newspapers and especially local ones. The drop in advertising revenue has been dramatic. Papers used to be full of adverts for jobs and house but these have been in short supply recently and the rise of the web as seen many move there adverts on line. What estate agent doesn't have a significant web presence these days? Even personal classifieds have moved to sites like Gumtree while those with stuff to sell are likely to use ebay amongst others.

This loss of revenue has seen substantial job losses at IOM Newspapers over the past few years so really they are offering the reader the chance to write the paper for free while still forking out their hard earned cash to buy it. Good business sense for the company. Only time will tell if this makes sense for the readers.