The mainstream media is grappling with how to react to the explosion of so-called 'citizen journalism', and the great and the good gathered in London this week to nail down the big issues.

And the We Media conference, sponsored by the BBC and Reuters, showed just how important this issue is for big media companies today. From receiving thousands of text messages, emails and mobile phone images during the July 7 bombing in London, to simple day-to-day information on news events, newspapers and broadcasters are wondering how they can harness millions of 'citizen journalists' even as many of those citzens are doing their hardest to get around mainstream media (MSM) with their own blogs and community sites.

Somewhat idealistically, the conference billed itself as talking about "how we create a better-informed society by collaborating with one another".

Unconventionally for the average talk-fest, it also featured so-called "WeJays" - We Media Journalists, empowered to blog the conference and feedback to panellists what the citizen journalist blogosphere was saying about the event.

An opening panel on 'trust' delved into the issue of what kind of media the average person trusts.

A 10-nation survey by GlobeScan, commissioned by the BBC and Reuters, found that of 10,000 people in the US, UK, Brazil, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia, national TV was the most trusted at 82 per cent. This was followed by national/regional newspapers (75 per cent), local newspapers (69 per cent), public radio (67 per cent), satellite TV (56 per cent) and blogs came up last with 25 per cent trusting them.

Some 23 per cent said they did not trust blogs.

The most "important" news source was television (56 per cent), followed by newspapers (21 per cent), Internet (9 per cent) and radio (9 per cent). However, it was not made clear which media people actually use regularly, as opposed to having a view on the media in general.

The subtext to the announcement of this survey was that MSM does not need to worry about 'citizen journalists' after all, which put a number of conference delegates' noses out of joint.

As blogger and delegate Suw Charman noted online: "They already have a survey that they've completed, and which they'll be promoting at the event, which shows people trust national TV news the most and bloggers very little. So much for 'citizen journalism' being a symbiosis of equals."

Ironically, the BBC's Director of the BBC's global news division Richard Sambrook talked about living in a 'remix, mash-up world', which goes some way to showing how deeply digital media is affecting many mainstream media outlets, whether they admit it or not.

And, in fact, several conference speakers talked about the opportunities big media have in gathering better breaking-news information from citizen journalists.

Helen Boaden, BBC director of news, mentioned that the Buncefield explosion generated 5,000-plus emails by midday on the day to the BBC, and it also received 300 mobile phone images from the July 7 bombings.

In all MSM seems to have an ambivalent relationship with citizen media - at once trying to co-opt it and at the same time trying not to be bypassed by it.

Tag: wemedia

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