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Home » blogs » David Cohn's blog

The Difference Between Crowdsourcing and Exploitation

by David Cohn on February 15, 2007 - 10:11pm.

By now you’ve probably heard about the recent Zogby Interactive poll on the importance of citizen journalism:

A majority of Americans (55%) in an online survey said bloggers are important to the future of American journalism and 74% said citizen journalism will play a vital role…Most respondents (53%) also said the rise of free Internet-based media pose the greatest opportunity to the future of professional journalism and three in four (76%) said the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.

That citizen journalism will be important in the changing media landscape should be nothing new. That it poses “the greatest opportunity to the future of professional journalism” is probably a relief to those who aren’t aware it yet.

The imputes to realizing this is seeing real working models (something we are working on at NewAssignment.Net). In the meantime, here’s a new project from Personal Democracy Forum called techPresident.

Run by a motley crew of journalists and bloggers the site will monitor how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the Web. And it will include the following crowdsourced features.

    A searchable repository of emails from each campaign [to come]
    Up-down voting on each candidate’s use of the Web [to come]
    Live from-the-campaign-trail photo feeds created by voters

Crowdsourcing isn’t about cost-cutting. It won’t be a fallback position after all professional journalists are fired. And any attempt to do this by a news organization will probably be scrutinized to death, as was the case last week when KFTY-TV in Santa Rosa moved to “local content harvesting.”

Citizen journalism isn’t about exploitation or content sharecropping. It’s a means to engage readers/participants and enhance the news. Journalists are still needed, more as guides than gatekeepers, but needed none-the-less. Job descriptions might change, but that just means its gut-check time. Are we in the business to run around, take notes, and write out information or to manage the conduit for public debate, often called the fourth estate?

——

David Cohn is the editor of NewAssignment.Net’s blog.


Clear Channel's move needs more than scrutiny...

Submitted by tish grier (not verified) on February 17, 2007 - 10:23am.

Good quick look at some of the very nasty things going on right now, David…

A couple of thoughts though: Isn’t the Personal Democracy Forum a political activist agency? If so, then the citizens are performing a vital role, as the journalists could be seen as compromising their objectivity if too involved….

And while there’s been some scrutiny on the KFTY thing (I did my own scrutinizing) I see things like this as a call to a more serious and open discussion on ethics in media.

Yeah, I know, that’s probably an oxymoronic term, but it seems to me that we’ve reached a point where media shouldn’t be allowed to run rampant without some sort of conscience.


Speaking of Crowdsourcing

Submitted by Steve Petersen on February 17, 2007 - 11:12am.

Since KFTY is now in the discussion, Jeff Howe at this Crowdsourcing blog has some links to a couple of interesting analysis pieces about this event.


Compensating crowdsourcers

Submitted by MrBabyMan (not verified) on February 16, 2007 - 6:26pm.

What’s your opinion on micropayments for crowdsourced content? This would seem to take the stink of exploitation out of the equation.


compensation

Submitted by David Cohn on February 16, 2007 - 6:51pm.

That’s a big question.

I think lots of people are wrangeling with that one and there are arguments both ways.

Personally, I’m all for it, especially if the organization doing the crowdsourcing stands to make a profit. (ie: If a nonprofit organization is crowdsourcing ideas, brain power etc, I don’t think they should feel obliged to compensate at all).

The compensation from a for-profit company doesn’t even need to be exuberant. More like a gestural “thank you.”

Even if this does take away from the feeling of exploitation of users — it still doesn’t replace profesionals, the back end of an organization that work hard, day-in and day-out, to make things go smoothly.


Tax deduction?

Submitted by Steve Petersen on February 17, 2007 - 6:51am.

David,

So, what if I submit content to my local non-profit and public radio or TV station? Will the news outfit give me an official statement of the value of my contribution so that I could use that as a tax deduction?


Associated Content

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on February 16, 2007 - 12:58pm.

I was reading your blog and you need to check out AssociatedContent.com. This website is the most successful of it’s kind.