'Citizen journalism' is here to stay

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"Citizen journalism," as seen in Internet blogs and forums may raise the specter of news from an unregulated and unreliable rabble, but it's not going to go away — and because of peer review it is becoming a more dependable source of information.

That was the consensus of Southern Oregon University's annual Thomas W. Pyle First Amendment Forum, where Ben Sherman, editor-in-chief of The Oregonian's oregonlive.com, observed that the forums, not the news, "drive the site."

Sherman added, "It's the place where you stand on a street corner and voice your opinion. It's unfiltered and it's built strong communities.

While at first resistant, The Oregonian added blogs five years ago and recruited contributors, only two of them paid — and now has 1,500 contributors a month, he said, while Reddit, the ranking service, lets community members rate contributors, increasing credibility.

The community-driven Seaside-sun.com gets all its stories and pictures from community members, gets 3,000 hits a day, makes a profit from ads and — with a policy of running just about anything people submit — has found that people "keep the conversation civil," said its marketing director, Laura Sellers.

The online newspaper (which has no paper version) is "having a huge role" in the region, as bloggers and journalists master the new tools and "learn to play nice together," said Sellers.

"It's another way to reach out and tell your story. It's really exciting," she said, noting that the north coast Web site runs all news releases and notices, sometimes having to encourage people who are afraid to see their names in print. Only rarely, she added, does she have to delete a digitally altered picture.

Calling the burgeoning internet "a freeway with a tsunami of information coming at you," Dennis Dunleavy, an SOU communications teacher, said even though the United States has been a democracy for over two centuries, we've abdicated a lot of powers to others and, with citizen journalism, "it's an exciting time to be reclaiming part of them."

OregonLive's many community forums have "done a darn good job" policing themselves, said Sherman, noting that he's eschewed editing of postings in favor of instant or live postings because "if it's not live, you insult and lose the person."

Added Sellers, "comments on articles have always been enabled and it allows people to play a part in the story."

When one audience member expressed concern about "unwashed citizen bloggers" compromising the quality and tradition of traditional objective journalism, Sherman noted, "it is shrinking the role of the traditional press, but they will have to reinvent themselves."

As panelists did their annual pulse-taking of the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly, Ronald Collins of the Freedom Forum in Washington, D.C., said Americans are freer than anyone, anywhere, but should be skeptical about recent restrictions on whistle-blowers, government information, free speech by students and articles "defaming" government officials.

Collins cautioned that corporations are as much a danger to free speech as governments and, because the internet uses telephone lines, the Federal Communications Commission could censor content of electronic books.

Another disturbing trend, Collins added, is that Supreme Court justices appointed by Democrats are voting more and more against free speech, while those appointed by Republicans are showing a libertarian bent, supporting free speech. Justice Stephen Brier, appointed by President Clinton, has voted against free speech issues more than any other, he said.

Regardless of the offensiveness of speech, Collins said — even in the case of protests at the funerals of Iraq War dead — the First Amendment prevails. "If it didn't protect offensive speech, we wouldn't need it," he said.

John Darling is a freelance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at jdarling@jeffnet.org.

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