My feeling is that the work of citizen journalists is vitally important. The emotionally intense video or photograph acts as a record that is critical in a world that ignores most of the atrocities that occur. The only fear is exploitation, but that often is not the case and certainly not in these two examples. Still, I think there is a balance between speed and accuracy. CJ’s will always be speedy, but we need journalists and editors to follow up behind with accuracy.

It seems that speed is the order of the day for most organizations. Stories would have to last more than a day or two in order for accuracy to become a concern. Public appetite also seems to favour speed. If a sober second thought was what the public wanted, the newspapers (which are the best at this) wouldn’t be dying.

The problem is most of the time the facts are never that clear to begin with. Take the H1N1 story that’s been dominant lately. With something like this, facts are very hard to come by, because nobody really knows anything. Facts are great for car crashes and fires. When it comes to most things that are truly important and complex, such as the HST rollout, we will always be dealing with point of view and shades of grey.

In journalism speed is important but telling a story properly, accurately, and with intellectual integrity will gain more support from the public. Citizen Journalists will never replace educated journalists for this very reason. Any one story is reported by all the major networks in a timely fashion. What sets a story apart from the others is intelligent commentary, meaningful images and good editing. That can’t be accomplished when speed is your number one priority. It can be accomplished with both of these things and that is something us journalists are trained to understand. It’s a balance and content tends to win out. Sometimes you sacrifice one for the other but in the end you need both elements, and that’s what makes a good journalist.

I believe, particularly with the advent of Social Media, that it is more necessary than ever, to pause to make sure that the facts are presented clearly, deliberately, and without the hysteria or distorion that “a girl told a guy, who told me this….” can sometimes bring to a story.
If a person or people are shooting at folks… then by all means, get it out there, ASAP.
In any other instance, where lives are not in immediate danger, I believe the “Media” outlet in question has the responsibility to verify facts and check that the story they are reporting is fair, accurate and balanced.

For one thing, the ‘napalm’ and ‘head shot’ photographs Mathew Ingram cites were taken by pro wire service photographers. However, in today’s time, citizens are capturing similarly powerful images that could come to define a conflict or other moment in history.

But that type of photo-witnessing is a small part of the citizen journalism picture.

To me, the bigger problem area is reportage.

If a citizen is just reporting what they are observing, that’s fine.

If they — or a pro journalist, for that matter — are making assertions of fact where they have not engaged in any attempt to verify those statements, they are committing a journalistic sin.

Check out the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s Principles of Journalism: http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles.

Now, the arguments of some pro Cit-J types with respects to errors by amateurs appears to be this: “Shit happens.”

And indeed it does, especially in the ‘fog of war’ situation one can find themselves in during a major breaking news event.

But there’s a difference between making a mistake occurring after trying to verify and adopting the publish-and-be-damned approach.

If I screw up as a pro journalist, I’ll hear about it from my bosses. If I screw up badly enough, I’m out of a gig.

What are the consequences of a citizen journalist screwing up equally badly or worse? They won’t even get their Twitter account suspended.

We seem to have this bizarre situation developing where anything less than continuous perfection by pro Js shows them to be valueless.

However, if cit Js screw up, it’s ObLaDi-ObLaDa.

At the same time, I swear I read the same people who trash pros and excuse amateurs as saying it’s all just journalism.

It’s a very contradictory, illogical and annoying state of affairs.

Anyways, some pointers on speed vs. accuracy from someone who handles breaking online news on a daily basis:

1. News is perishable and audiences are fickle, so you want to be fast

2. But mistakes can be easily publicized, and you don’t want to end up with egg on your face (think Dewey Wins!). It’s better to be a bit slower than dead wrong

3. If the ‘facts’ change over the course of the event, and that will probably happen, make sure that is made clear to the audience

4. Be clear about what you know and what you don’t know (again, the fog of war). The proportion should change as the story develops.

5. Don’t abandon critical faculties or proportionality in the rush to break news. In Toronto in late October, an ‘outbreak’ of swine flu was reported at a health care facility — or should I say, “OUTBREAK!!!”

It was three cases. My headline was “Handful of swine flu cases detected at Mount Sinai”

Bottom line? Be as fast as you can be while being accurate and fair.