The fallacy that bloggers have replaced real news hounds
A pioneering example of citizen journalism, the notion that ordinary people can take part in the news-gathering process, was launched last week. Gawker, the New York gossip blog, put its Gawker Stalker feature into map form.
Gawker Stalker is a collection of sightings of celebrities around Manhattan that are reported via e-mail and instant messages by its zealous readers. Although Financial Times readers no doubt had their minds on higher, or at least more serious, things last week, they could thus have found out where Al Pacino and Keanu Reaves were.
All well and good, but Gawker caused offence by marking its sightings on an interactive map. Cue outrage on cable television news, with stars' publicists complaining about their clients and their clients' children being in danger. (A disclosure: Nick Denton, Gawker's publisher, once worked at the FT and we wrote a book together.)
Whatever the merits of Gawker Stalker, it is at least a genuine piece of citizen journalism, a genre that is thin on the ground. The internet has set off an explosion of opinion-writing, diary-keeping, photograph-storing and news aggregation. But it has not, so far, produced a lot of first-hand reporting by non-professionals.
That is worth noting, given the current frenzy about how the internet democratises the media. Even Rupert Murdoch, who is no spring chicken and so might have been counted upon to be sceptical, is a convert. "Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry - the editors, the chief executives and, let's face it, the proprietors," News Corporation's chairman said last week.
An extravagant version of this argument was made by Arianna Huffington, the socialite, intellectual and now blogger, whose Huffington Post is an online collection of blogs by celebrities (including one that she cobbled together on behalf of George Clooney and later had to retract). She wrote in The Guardian that "the blogosphere is now the most vital news source in America".
Hold it right there. News source? Even Ms Huffington's examples do not provide much evidence of that. She cited the London bombings last July, which was a case of ordinary people being closer to a news event than most journalists, and producing a lot of primary material, from eyewitness reports to photographs taken on mobile phones. But, beyond this, the examples are less clear-cut.
The internet has a revolutionary impact on some areas of journalism, most obviously comment and analysis. Anyone can be a columnist now: there is no need to force your way past the old media gatekeepers. That makes for variable quality but it enables many people with genuine expertise not only to reach an audience but to debate things with others.
The internet also allows news to be aggregated and re-formatted fluidly. Not only can Yahoo News and Google News assemble their lists of stories but bloggers can link to, and argue about, the ones they believe are the most important. Websites such as Digg.com allow people to vote on stories, which move up and down a news list, depending on how interesting the crowd thinks they are.
As Mr Murdoch observed, that reduces some of the traditional power of editors. One of the things that editors and reporters are trained to do is pick out the most interesting angle - the "story" - from a mass of material. The judgments made by professionals can now be challenged by everyone else. Blogs have picked up and publicised stories that were downplayed by news outlets.
But selection is not the whole of news-gathering: you need material from which to select. And most of the news headlines that appear on the Huffington Post - in common with other current affairs blogs - come from mainstream outfits such as the Associated Press. This is fine, but it is an intellectual confidence trick to cite such ventures as evidence that blogs have become news sources.
Where, beyond Gawker Stalker, is truly democratic news-gathering to be found? Attempts to replicate reporting of national and international news with citizen journalism in the US and Europe, such as Wikinews, have not fared particularly well. OhMyNews, the South Korean site that combines professional and amateur reporting, has performed rather better but Korea may be a special case.
Logic suggests that the comparative advantage of citizen journalism is at the local level, where people witness things that are not covered by professional reporters. Local papers have always been full of such news. In my first job in journalism, I edited the sports page of a local newspaper in Devon (it can now be revealed) by assembling reports that had been typed up and submitted by the managers of local teams.
Local news need not be defined simply by geography. Clusters of people with common interests, or those who work in the same company or industry, can earn more by sharing information than by reading a magazine or newspaper. In Silicon Valley, specialist blogs have broken news about, for example, new Apple products by tapping their network of well-informed insiders.
That makes people better-informed but it does not please everyone. Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, dislikes the Apple blogs as much as celebrity publicists do Gawker Stalker. One person's brave new world of citizen journalism is another's dystopia in which every passer-by and employee is a potential snitch.
When all gatherers of news were professionals, it was at least easier to hide.
博客能搏出公民新闻吗
这是公民新闻业的一个开创性例子，普通人可以参加新闻采集过程的概念于最近推出：纽约的闲聊博客网站Gawker将它的专栏Gawker Stalker做成了地图形式。
Gawker Stalker是收集曼哈顿区名流行踪的专栏，这些信息由它的狂热读者通过电子邮件和及时讯息予以报告。尽管《金融时报》(Financial Times)的读者无疑关注更高尚、或至少更严肃的事件，但他们将由此了解艾尔帕西诺(Al Pacino)或基诺里维斯(Keanu Reaves)的行踪了。
这当然好，不过Gawker在互动地图上标记名人行踪的行为得罪了人。有线电视新闻里暗示了对报料行为的愤慨，明星们的公关人员也抱怨他们的客户及客户的子女处于危险之中。(透露一个消息：Gawker的出版人尼克丹顿(Nick Denton)曾在《金融时报》工作，我们还一起写过书。)
无论Gawker Stalker的好处有些什么，它至少是地道公民新闻的一个实例，实属少见。互联网已经引爆了舆论写作、记日记、图片储存和新闻汇集的热潮。但迄今为止，非专业人士还没能拿出大量第一手新闻报道。
鉴于目前人们狂热地认为互联网能使传媒民主化，上述问题值得注意。鲁珀特默多克(Rupert Murdoch)可是经过风雨见过世面的，因此一直被认为是这种观点的怀疑论者，但就连他也是公民新闻学的皈依者。这位新闻集团(News Corporation)的董事长最近说：“权力正从我们这个行业的旧式精英――编辑、首席执行官和媒体所有者那里转移出去，我们还是面对现实吧。”
这场争论最夸张的版本是由阿瑞安娜休芬顿(Arianna Huffington)制造的。休芬顿是一个社会名流、知识分子，现在还是位博客作者，她的《休芬顿邮报》(Huffington Post)是个在线收集名人博客的网站(里面层包括一个由她拼凑起来的，以乔治克鲁尼(George Clooney)名义所做的博客，后来被迫撤销)。她在《卫报》(Guardian)上写道，“博客空间现在是美国最重要的新闻发源地”。
且慢，新闻发源地？即使休芬顿女士的那些例子也不能为此提供足够的证据。她引用了去年6月的伦敦爆炸案作为例证，这是普通人比大多数记者更接近新闻事件的一个案例，并产生了从目击者报告到手机拍摄照片等大量一手资料，但除此以外，其它例子都不够鲜明。
互联网对新闻业的某些领域产生了革命性影响，最明显的是评论和分析。现在每个人都能成为专栏作家：你没有必要非要通过旧式传媒的看门人。这导致质量良莠不齐，但让许多具有真才实干的人不仅能为人所知，而且可以与其他人展开争论。
互联网还允许新闻以流动形式汇集并重新排版。不仅雅虎新闻(Yahoo News)和Google新闻(Google News)可以汇编它们的新闻列表，博客们同样可以链结到他们认为最重要的新闻，并进行议论。Digg.com等网站允许人们对新闻进行投票，这些新闻在新闻列表里排位上升或下降，取决于大众认为它们的有趣程度如何。
正如默多克先生所发现的，这削弱了传统编辑们的权力。编辑和记者所受训练之一，就是从大量素材中选择最有趣的角度，即“故事”。现在，任何人都可以挑战专业人士的判断。博客网站已对新闻媒体未予重视的故事进行选择和发布。
但选材不是新闻采集的全部：你需要素材才能从中挑选。与其它时事博客一样，《休芬顿邮报》上出现的大多数新闻标题来自美联社(Associated Press)等主流机构。这没关系，但引用这些行为来证明博客已变成了新闻来源却是一个高智商骗术。
除了Gawker Stalker外，在哪里可以找到真正的民主新闻采集呢？在美国和欧洲，如维基新闻(Wikinews)等机构，试图用公民记者来复制国内和国际新闻报道的尝试进展不是特别好。韩国网站OhMyNews把职业和业余报道结合起来，效果更好，但韩国或许是个特例。
逻辑表明，公民记者的相对优势是在当地这一层面上，人们在当地目击没有被专业记者报道的一些事件。当地报纸总是充斥着这类新闻。我的第一份记者工作是编辑德文郡一份当地报纸(现在可以透露)的体育版，把当地各球队经理打印并提交的报道汇编起来。
当地新闻没必要按地理下定义。有着共同兴趣，或在同一家公司或同一个行业里工作的人群，共享信息能比看杂志和报纸获得更多。在硅谷，专家博客向消息灵通的内线人士组成的网络打听，就发布过一些新闻，如新的苹果(Apple)产品等。
这让人们消息更灵通，但并非人人都喜欢。苹果首席执行官史蒂夫乔布斯(Steve Jobs)讨厌苹果博客，就像名人的公关宣传人员讨厌Gawker Stalker一样。一个人的公民新闻新天地是另一个人的地狱，在那里每个过客和雇员都是潜在的告密者。
所有的新闻采集人员都是专业人士时，你至少更容易躲起来。
