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'Citizen journalism start-ups are doomed'

Posted: 18/04/08 By: John Ndege
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Citizen journalism is a brave concept that hopes to bring the objects of news reports closer to the production of those reports so they can have a say on how they are written, aired and received.

But citizen journalism websites, webzines and other online destinations committed to turning a profit purely on user-generated news and editorials will struggle to survive as a business and ultimately will fail.

I’'m not referring to sites that claim to be citizen-based but flood their pages with Associated Press wire reports - I'm referring to purely user-generated content.

Did I just say something inflammatory? Hardly. Even the term citizen journalism has become unpopular due to confusion surrounding who is and who is not a citizen.

But this belies the main problem. Put simply, where is the money going to come from?

If you see your favourite citizen journalist site being sold for a few million bucks your going to have a feeling of entitlement. Most citizen journalists now expect to be paid - rightly so.

However, most - if not all - citizen journalism start-ups cannot pay for submissions, they just haven't got the cash.

Advertising revenues are dropping like a stone, largely due to the increased supply of content driving online advertising dollars down to the point where they are almost meaningless. Slapping subscription charges on a site is not going to work in today's market either, so developers are caught in a Catch-22. Citizen journalism sites need writers to make money but those same sites need money to get writers.

ScribbleSheet, my citizen journalism start-up, was caught in this very trap and unfortunately we had to pull the plug.

ScribbleSheet didn't cover news. We focussed on editorials, comments and opinion articles because we felt news is cheap. It's ubiquitous and almost of no value. I can read a different news site every day for a year and still get the information I need. Though the differing styles may not be to my satisfaction, I will still get the news.

Here lies a major problem for citizen journalism start-ups. It's difficult to add value on top of news unless you have an attractive website that really connects with the wider web. However, as time passes even that is not going to save your site. Every big news website is getting savvy about good design and engaging its users.

So what do citizen journalism sites have left? They struggle to make money and thanks to services like Twitter, through which news is quickly and easily disseminated, they are less likely to deliver the all important scoops that they rely on to build an audience.

In fact, we are now seeing new start-ups shifting their focus and instead working on ways to parse out useful breaking news information from Twitter so that they can out-scoop existing citizen journalist sites, the Associated Press and almost anyone else for that matter.

When Scoopler.com - and more sites like it - eventually launch they could kill the citizen journalism start-up scene pretty quickly.

So what next? Clearly citizens will continue to feel the need to express themselves but I don't believe this can be done on a stand-alone online destination.

Citizen journalists must work with professional journalists to deliver networked journalism.

It goes beyond people just sending in photos it means involving citizens in setting the news agenda. Networked journalism is a real collaboration that could improve journalism and secure a future of having citizens in the mix.

Networks are the best outcome for citizen journalism. They guarantee the quality that many user-generated content initiatives lack while acknowledging that old school journalism can no longer continue as it has been operating.

There is a future - and a potentially prosperous one - once the amateur and the professional work together to tread that tricky balance between quality and extensiveness.

And if mainstream media does fail us again, well, we'll always have Twitter…. and someone will always be listening there.

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Comments

A very good piece John, as usual. It's difficult to dispute anything here. The whole point about CJ is that there are low barriers to entry, meaning a proliferation of sites and a rapidly diluted ad market. You are right, the chances of building a sustainable business on ad revenue are low indeed. But hopefully there is a business model for entrepreneurs in developing participative media applications and platforms for larger news groups. This means that we'll still probably see start ups that look like CJ sites but in fact are more like prototypes for these applications- the best of which will be absorbed into MSM sites. My own site, www.yoosk.com is an example. There's a lot of innovation going on in this area and to be fair, the larger news groups in the UK seem open to new ideas from the outside. However, I get the feeling sometimes that editors would like to innovate more but don't have the resources. This is possibly for the same reason that CJ start ups fail- there's no money in participative media for the major news groups either. It's also a big risk for managers to be seen to lay off a dozen reporters, only to take on new staff to work on a multimedia project that may or may not work. So those responsible for interactive news, blogging etc still seem to be incredibly overstretched and under-financed. It would be great to see the larger players set up something formal to nurture the best start ups. Something along the lines of the Knight News Challenge, for example. Sorry to hear about Scribblesheet, which was a nice looking site with some good content. But this piece (and others on your blog) shows that you've got what it takes to learn and move on. I Look forward to seeing what you start next...

TimHood Hood, CEO, Thumbsize - 19/04/08

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