TV50 calling all citizen journalists

Before they were abruptly laid off last week, the men and women who comprised the news team at Santa Rosa's KFTY-TV were in the business of gathering and reporting local stories.

Under the new model, that job will fall to someone else, namely, you.

The concept, known as citizen journalism or user-generated content, can be a powerful way of expressing a point of view, as anyone who's ever visited YouTube or MySpace knows.

But how good will citizen journalists be at telling local news stories - the car crashes, school board meetings and the like - that traditionally have been the diet of professional newsgatherers?

John Burgess, TV50's general manager and vice president, said Friday that citizen journalists will do a "much better job" of covering local issues than what the station was doing with the 13 members of the news department he let go Friday.

Burgess declined further comment Monday, but several media experts expressed skepticism at his plan, which includes a weekly public affairs program with the subject to be determined by viewers, and "regional information segments" featuring submitted video.

"I don't know of any legitimate news sites that are solely generated by the public," said Al Tompkins, who teaches broadcasting at the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based school for professional journalists.

His main concern is that these amateur newshounds will bring their own biases to their reports.

"Those going to Senate hearings or the city council meeting are people who have an agenda, and our job as journalists is to cover these events as dispassionately as possible," he said.

If anything, the situation at Channel 50 reflects how the Internet and technologies such as cell phone cameras are rewriting the traditional rules of mass communication.

Whereas media companies and their employees used to be the gatekeepers of information, now anyone with basic computer skills can create their own take on the world in the form of a weblog - blog - or other outlet.

"I think people want to feel that reporters are not some entity apart from them," said Jonah Raskin, the chair of the communication studies department at Sonoma State University.

Many media outlets have responded by involving readers and viewers in ways unimaginable only a few years ago, letting them post comments to online stories, submit their own videos or even consulting with them on what stories need to be covered.

"The technology has taken it to a new level," said Bruce Kyse, publisher of The Press Democrat. "You have citizen observers of events. That changes how news is aggregated. There's just more information."

But Kyse said he's not convinced that turning over news decisions entirely to readers makes sense.

"They may get frustrated or angry with what we report, or don't report, but I think there's a great deal of respect for putting out an aggressive and comprehensive news report," he said. "I'm not sure how you replace that with citizen journalism. I don't think you can."

And for all the talk of revolutionary change, 82 percent of adults still primarily get information about their communities from daily and weekly newspapers and TV and radio stations, according to a 2006 survey commissioned by the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union.

If the model for TV50's future sounds familiar, it's because it's essentially the same one used by community access stations, with a few significant differences.

As nonprofits, community access stations don't have to rely on advertisers or ratings. Nor do they have the budgets to hire reporters and equipment to do what traditionally has been the expensive task of in-depth journalism.

"No matter what they try, whether it's citizen input to do their shows or community groups coming in, they can't escape the fact they're in the business to make money," said Dan Villalva, executive director of Santa Rosa's Community Media Center. "If they can't get advertisers to support what they're doing, they won't be doing that long."

As for relying on viewers to tell their own stories, Villalva said many interns at the Media Center end up leaving once they realize how much time and effort producing a show takes.

"The ones who are truly serious take a few years to learn this craft," he said.