How citizens create news stories

Abstract

A systematic study of day-to-day practices of citizen reporters, compared to their mainstream counterparts, suggests that ordinary citizens can serve as a vital complement to mainstream journalism, however not as its substitute. The paper develops a version of the “news access” theory, which sees citizen journalists as hindered by their inferior access to news sources, unlike mainstream journalism, where the problem is seen as the superior access of some of their sources to extensive and favored coverage. There are several symptoms for citizen reporters' limited news access: their modest use of human sources; the high proportion of one-source items; their reluctance to interactively negotiate versions with sources; and their contacts with sources tend to be ad hoc exchanges, rather than long-term role relationships. On the other hand, citizen reporters have adopted several mechanisms that help them make up for their comparably limited access. They are much more likely to pursue stories at their own initiative. They tend to predicate their stories on firsthand witnessing, technical sources (mainly Internet), personal acquaintances, and on their own experience. Data were gleaned from a series of interviews in which reporters from Israeli citizen and mainstream news websites explained how they formulated their sampled items.

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HOW CITIZENS CREATE NEWS STORIES
Zvi Reich
First Published:October2008
To cite this Article Reich, Zvi(2008)'HOW CITIZENS CREATE NEWS STORIES',Journalism Studies,9:5,739 — 758
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HOW CITIZENS CREATE NEWS STORIES
The ‘‘news access’’ problem reversed
Zvi Reich
A systematic study of day-to-day practices of citizen reporters, compared to their mainstream
counterparts, suggests that ordinary citizens can serve as a vital complement to mainstream
journalism, however not as its substitute. The paper develops a version of the ‘‘news access’’
theory, which sees citizen journalists as hindered by their inferior access to news sources, unlike
mainstream journalism, where the problem is seen as the superior access of some of their sources
to extensive and favored coverage. There are several symptoms for citizen reporters’ limited news
access: their modest use of human sources; the high proportion of one-source items; their
reluctance to interactively negotiate versions with sources; and their contacts with sources tend to
be ad hoc exchanges, rather than long-term role relationships. On the other hand, citizen
reporters have adopted several mechanisms that help them make up for their comparably limited
access. They are much more likely to pursue stories at their own initiative. They tend to predicate
their stories on firsthand witnessing, technical sources (mainly Internet), personal acquaintances,
and on their own experience. Data were gleaned from a series of interviews in which reporters
from Israeli citizen and mainstream news websites explained how they formulated their sampled
items.
KEYWORDS citizen journalism; initiative; newsmaking; news sources; online news
Introduction
Citizen journalism is a promising new breed of news-making that has been
championed by various scholars as ‘‘a kind of antidote to the ‘bowling alone’ effect’’
(Schaffer, 2007, p. 6) and for its potential to empower the ‘‘former audience’’ (Gillmor,
2006, p. XXV; Rosen, 2005) by granting ordinary citizens a novel, hands-on role.
According to The State of the News Media report (2007), ‘‘Citizen journalism ... is
becoming less something that is dismissed as the amateur hour before the professionals
take the stage and more [as] something that enriches the conversation.’’ Another study
contends that the ‘‘Citizen media is emerging as a form of bridge media, linking traditional
media with forms of civic participation’’ (Schaffer, 2007, p. 7). As a result of citizens’
involvement in news production, The Economist correspondent believes that the field of
journalism is undergoing no less than a ‘‘reformational moment’’: ‘‘[J]ust as the printing
press affected the Church*people are bypassing the sacrosanct authority of the journalist
in the same way as Luther asserted that individuals could have a direct relationship with
God without the intermediary of the priest’’ (Cukier, 2006).
However, the extent to which citizen reporters are actually living up to these
ambitious expectations has yet to merit attention. Notwithstanding the hundreds of
citizen sites operating just in the United States (The State of the News Media, 2007), the
very question of whether ordinary citizens are at all capable of producing news is the
Journalism Studies, Vol. 9, No 5, 2008, 739758
ISSN 1461-670X print/1469-9699 online
–2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14616700802207748
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subject of an on-going dispute, which can be divided into three schools of thought: the
naysayers, the well-wishers, and the mixed school.
The naysayers claim that untrained citizens can only produce commentary, analysis
and opinion and can occasionally report on breaking stories when they happen to be ‘‘in
the wrong place at the right time’’ (Allan, 2006, p. 152), such as the London bombings or
Hurricane Katrina. However, as far as the naysayers are concerned, citizens are simply
unqualified to produce original news content (Lemann, 2006; Lenhart and Fox, 2006;
Lowery, 2006; Reese et al., 2007; Wall, 2005). Nick Lemann (2006), the Dean of Columbia
Graduate School of Journalism, did not mince words in stating that ‘‘it sounds obvious, but
reporting requires reporters.’’
The well-wishers claim that ordinary citizens can and should produce news (Allan,
2006; Gillmor, 2006; Kim and Hamilton, 2006, Platon and Deuze, 2003). Dan Gillmor, the
most prominent proponent of ‘‘user-generated content,’’ claims that ‘‘the audience is
learning how to get a better, timelier news report. It’s also learning how to join the process
of journalism ..., [and] in some cases, [is] doing a better job than the professionals’’ (2006,
p. XXV).
Members of the mixed school have, inter alia, surveyed hyper-local citizen news
outlets in the United States. In their estimation, these sites are ‘‘forming as fusions of news
and schmooze’’ (Schaffer, 2007, p. 8); their citizen contributors tend to be ‘‘prose-shy’’
(Schaffer, 2007, p. 6), often supplying fragments of stories instead of full-fledged news
items (Schaffer, 2007, p. 10). The mixed camp is indirectly supported by the most
celebrated citizen site in the world, South Korea’s OhmyNews. Besides its phalanx of
volunteer contributors, the site has hired a team of staff reporters (Allan, 2006, p. 129; Kim
and Hamilton, 2006, p. 545). As such, the OhmyNews’ management has indirectly
acknowledged that there are at least certain journalistic tasks which require ‘‘real’’
reporters.
The objective of the present study is to shed light on these matters by investigating
the daily conduct of ordinary citizens doubling as reporters. More specifically, the
researcher has endeavored to scrutinize the ways in which citizen journalists actually
obtain information and produce original stories, vis-a
`-vis their colleagues in the
mainstream press. Such an undertaking will help researchers and superiors of citizen
organizations discern the areas in which this up and coming genre might be improved, so
that it can become, if not an alternative to mainstream news, then an edifying supplement.
Furthermore, it may very well yield significant insights concerning mainstream journalism
as well. For instance, the present study’s findings may point to those elements of
journalism that can be tackled by lay citizens, on account of their developed intuition
or common sense. Conversely, the findings may shed light on those areas that are best left
to the discretion of professional journalists.
The study’s data stem from a comparative study of the reporting practices of citizen
and mainstream reporters. The former were sampled from the contributors to Israel’s only
nation-wide citizen journalism website (www.scoop.co.il), while the mainstream reporters
work for the country’s three leading news websites (www.ynet.co.il, www.haaretz.co.il,
www.nrg.co.il).
Israel constitutes an outstanding case study, for it boasts one of the highest rates of
broadband connection use in the OECD,
1
and, relatively speaking, its citizens are quite
interested in news and politics at least according to journalistic assessments (Tsfati and
Livio, 2003).
2
Furthermore, it has advanced models of both types of news organizations.
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Scoop represents an ambitious, innovative, and well-funded national citizen news website,
which is inspired by OhmyNews and shares many of its attributes.
3
The mainstream news
websites also boast sophisticated formats of online news from an editorial, technological
and commercial standpoint.
4
The research method entailed a series of reconstruction interviews with citizen and
mainstream journalists from the above-mentioned organizations. This approach was
developed and tested in other news production contexts (Reich, 2005, 2006, forthcoming).
During the sessions, the interviewees were asked to outline how they obtained a sampling
of their items. Additionally, the researcher spent seven days in Scoop’s newsroom
observing the operations and interviewing its editorial staff.
The paper opens by suggesting the ‘‘news access’’ model as a theoretical framework.
However, the researcher has turned this same model on its head, for the sake of adapting
it to the realities of citizen journalism.
Inverted News Access
In studying the practices of citizen reporters, the researcher can lean on neither the
present literature on citizen journalism, which is but a pittance and hardly discusses
production practices (Beckerman, 2003; Gillmor, 2006; Kim and Hamilton, 2006, Platon and
Deuze, 2003), nor on the more capacious literature about alternative journalism (Atton,
2002a,b, Atton and Wickenden, 2005; Downing, 2003; Harcup, 2003, 2005; Hindman, 1998)
which is far too ideologically-driven to project onto the nature of citizen websites. Studies
of citizen journalism practices are not only scarce. Many of them focus on the contribution
of citizens to mainstream media organizations, which tend to minimize their participation
in the news production process (Domingo et al., 2007; Hermida and Thurman, 2007;
Oakham and Murrell, 2007; O
¨rnebring, 2007; Ryfe and Mensing, 2007; Ugille and Paulussen,
2007).
Blog studies, some of which have already been mentioned, do contribute to the
discussion of lay people’s journalistic competence, but lack the organizational context of
citizen journalism.
In light of the above, this paper suggests an adaptation of the ‘‘news access’’
concept, which has already proved its theoretical mettle in all that concerns mainstream
news (cf. Cottle, 2000, Gitlin, 1980; Hall et al., 1978; Molotch and Lester, 1974; Schlesinger,
1990). This concept elucidates the crucial link between production and representation by
explaining why certain news sources are consistently privy to extensive and favored
coverage. However, in citizen journalism the focus should be shifted from the superior
access of mainstream sources to the restricted access of ordinary citizens.
The researcher’s interviews and observations, as well as the existing literature on
citizen journalism, alternative journalism and the sociology of news, point to the fact that
citizen reporters are restricted by the following characteristics of their enterprise:
.Non-established organizations. Since citizen news outlets are fledgling, unconventional
organizations, possessing limited exposure, revenue, and public prestige, potential news
sources are often unfamiliar with them and do not read their publications. Consequently,
the sources are not inclined to perceive them as a forum in which they would like to
appear. Practically speaking, this means that citizen reporters are usually kept out of the
loop of routine source-controlled exchanges, such as press conferences, press releases,
and updates.
HOW CITIZENS CREATE NEWS STORIES 741
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.A confluence of weaknesses. Of the four power combinations of sourcemedia encounters,
the present topic pits a weak media outlet against similarly weak news sources (Reese,
1991, p. 326). Even when citizen journalists rely on human agents, the latter are more
likely to be ordinary citizens and not the mainstream circles consisting of senior officials
and PR practitioners.
.Inefficient division of labor. Similar to their alternative counterparts (Atton, 2003; Harcup,
2005; Hindman, 1998), citizen news outlets are generally unable to divide their staff into
news beats (Schaffer, 2007). This has far-reaching implications on reporters’ access to
news sources, for citizen journalists have little opportunity to cultivate long-standing
relations with them. Their constant meandering between new topics and new sources is
thus most reminiscent of general beat reporters (Gans, 1979, p. 31; Marchetti, 2005), who
are characterized by a superficial acquaintance with both news sources and the manifold
subjects that they cover.
.Limited journalistic know-how. Most citizen reporters not only lack prior journalistic
training, but their learning curve is slower than professionals. Firstly, as volunteers
without enough time to invest in news-making, the output of citizen journalists is usually
limited and this constraint slows down their socialization process. Second, as in
alternative organizations (Atton, 2002a; Gibbs, 2003), citizen journalism outlets face
high burnout and rapid turnover rates, so that most of the contributors are
inexperienced. Process-oriented practices, like sourcing, are all the more difficul to learn,
for the pages of mainstream news outlets contain very few clues as to the nature of their
work methods (Manning, 2001; Zelizer, 1990).
.Weak organizational control. Compared to their mainstream counterparts, citizen news
outlets are generally under-funded threadbare organizations (Nip, 2006; Schaffer, 2007)
with loose organizational structures. Its contributors tend to be scattered, isolated, and
preoccupied with making a living in other pursuits, so that it is difficult to consolidate its
far-flung parts into a functioning news organization in the ordinary sense of the word.
Relying on volunteer-based production by unskilled and uncompensated manpower
undermines the organizational hierarchy, especially before the copy is submitted. As
such, the editors’ jurisdiction is limited to post hoc veto or redaction. In light of the above,
citizen news organizations have little choice but to adopt an ‘‘inclusive’’ editorial policy
(Allan, 2006, p. 126; Schaffer, 2007, p. 9), which basically invites anyone to write about
anything at anytime.
Notwithstanding the rhetoric of ‘‘giving a voice to the voiceless’’ (Downing, 2003,
p. 633; Gillmor, 2005, p. XXIX), citizen organizations do not necessarily suffice themselves
with the niches that are ignored or under-reported by the mainstream media. Unlike
alternative journalists, whose selection of sources is ideologically motivated (Atton, 2002b;
Atton and Wickenden, 2005; Harcup, 2005), the sources in citizen journalism are largely
defined by the serendipitous encounters and idiosyncratic choices of lay people as well as
their inability to access better-positioned sources.
As their alternative counterparts, citizen organizations are basically ‘‘hybrids’’ of
mainstream and alternative media (Atton, 2002a, p. 151; Kim and Hamilton, 2006).
Consequently, their aspirations often coincide with those of mainstream news organiza-
tions: broad audiences and maximum revenues (Schaffer, 2007, p. 43). Likewise, citizen
news organizations occasionally seek to cover similar stories and turn to the same sources
as their mainstream counterparts. For example, during in-house meetings at Scoop, the
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editors’ repeatedly expressed their desire for news that caters to wider audiences,
especially in the midst of major events, when their homepage can seem to be a bit out of
touch. This objective requires not only more mainstream topics, but more mainstream
sources.
The fact that ordinary citizens are relatively ill-equipped to access and use news
sources goes without saying. Much less obvious, though, are the methods that ordinary
citizens turn to for sourcing their stories and the consequences, for better or worse, of
their limited access vis-a
`-vis mainstream journalists. These issues thus stand at the heart of
the research questions that follow.
Research Questions
Given the exploratory nature of the topic and the dearth of comparable research,
the study employs research questions in lieu of a formal hypothesis.
RQ 1: Do the news sources that citizen journalists avail themselves of constitute a unique
compendium of sources compared to those of mainstream reporters?
In light of their limited access to news sources*especially senior sources and PR
practitioners, both of which were found to be the dominant sources of mainstream
journalism (Reich, forthcoming)*citizen reporters could be expected to rely on a unique
mix of sources. Overall, they could be expected to bypass human interactions, while those
human sources that they do use probably include a greater representation of ordinary
citizens, who are rarely accessed by mainstream outlets (Gans, 1979, p. 15; Hallin, 1992,
p. 12).
RQ 2: Do citizen journalists rely on less news sources than mainstream reporters?
On account of their poor access to news sources and insufficient knowledge in all
that concerns the construction of full-length stories, even when they already have a lead
(Schaffer, 2007, p. 10), citizen reporters could be expected to make relatively little use of
news sources in their items.
RQ 3: Do citizen reporters initiate more contacts with their sources?
The question of who initiates the news assumes a greater importance if we assume
that the initiators, be they reporters or sources, may determine the existence of the item,
the timing of the story’s release, its topic, content (at least to some extent), and sometimes
even the manner in which the piece is framed. What is more, they may even choose the
identity of the other party (the particular source or reporter).
Lacking the necessary conditions to foster an environment of regular, accountable,
and committed sources with whom they manage an intricate web of relationships
(Manning, 2001; Roshco, 1975), it would appear that citizen reporters cannot depend on
their sources to initiate the contacts that yield new stories.
RQ 4: Are the relations between citizen reporters and their contacts less established than
mainstream reporters?
One of the expected symptoms of citizen reporters’ limited news access is that their
relations with their sources are less established than conventional reporters. While the
latter tend to rely on a relatively steady diet of sources (Sigal, 1986; Tuchman, 1978), citizen
HOW CITIZENS CREATE NEWS STORIES 743
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reporters can be expected to only turn to sources on an occasional basis or were
previously unacquainted with. Likewise, many of their collaborations are carried out on a
one-time basis.
The answer to this question should determine not only the frequency, intensity, and
openness with which citizen reporters communicate with sources, but the social nature of
these contacts.
RQ 5: Do citizen journalists interact with their news sources less frequently than
mainstream reporters?
Even when they avail themselves of human sources, citizen reporters could be
expected to minimize their interactions with them and eschew the mainstream practice of
interactively negotiating their source’s versions (Berkowitz and TerKeurst, 1999, Manning,
2001; Tuchman, 1978). Instead, citizens could be expected to place a greater emphasis on
text-mediated and non-mediated channels (i.e. on-the-scene coverage and face-to-face
interviews).
Methodology
The primary mode of research, reconstruction interviews, has proven to be an
effective and reliable tool for systematically studying the actual performance of journalists,
as it provides the researcher with access to even the most sensitive news processes (Reich,
2005, 2006, forthcoming). Some of these practices tend to slip under the radar screen of
the more traditional methods.
5
The reconstruction interview involved asking a group of
reporters to expound upon the manner in which they acquired a set of specific news
items, to include the frequency with which they employed different practices. To the best
of my knowledge, this marks the first time that the reconstruction interview has been
implemented in either a comparative context or the field of citizen journalism.
The study entailed three distinct steps:
1. Assembling the items. The present researcher compiled all the news items that were
published in one of Scoop’s news sections during the sampling month (November 15 to
December 15, 2006). A time period of 30 days was chosen in order to strike a balance
between the need for fresh items*so the reporters could accurately recall how they
constructed each story*and the need for a sample comprised of manifold stories, dates
and circumstances.
2. Identifying and selecting the news items. In order to filter out non-news items, which were
not always readily discernible in the citizen website’s own definitions of news (Kim and
Hamilton, 2006), two coders classified all the items into three categories: definitely news,
definitely not news, and undecided. The coders agreed on 86 percent of the items, and the
rest was handed over to the website’s editor-in-chief to decide, under the assumption that
he was the best judge of what his own organization classifies as news. He deemed less
than half of them to be news stories.
3. Interviewing the reporters. The reconstruction interviews were conducted over the phone,
as soon as the sampling period was over. In order to minimize the gaps between the first
and the last interviewee, this stage was completed within a month. Scoop’s editor-in-chief
sent the reporters emails encouraging them to participate in the study. Most of them
immediately agreed to participate. The following measures were taken to compensate for
the limited number of news items that were published during the sampling month:
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instead of merely constructing a sample, the entire population of news items was
reconstructed; and a sample was constructed of another entire month (January 15 to
February 15, 2007).
For the sake of comparison, the three leading Israeli mainstream news websites were
studied at the same time as the first wave of citizen items, and every effort was made to
use the same methodology. Nevertheless, there were three unavoidable differences.
First, since the mainstream websites offered a wide enough variety of reporters and
items, there was no need to reconstruct every single item or take a second sample.
Accordingly, 10 reporters were randomly chosen from each website. Second, the
mainstream reporters were quite sensitive about the confidentiality of their sources.
Consequently, we conducted face-to-face interviews with them so the researcher could
take the necessary precautions. Each reporter was asked to reconstruct a sample of 10
randomly-chosen items. The seating arrangement*the reporter and the interviewer sat at
the opposite sides of the table and were separated by a small screen*made it impossible
for the researcher to discern which of the 10 items was being described at any given
moment. Third, we avoided intrusive questions about the specific identity of the source,
which in any case was not of any research value to the present study. For example, the
questionnaire consisted entirely of general categories, such as ‘‘Senior Source’’ or ‘‘PR
Practitioner.’’
Despite the above-mentioned differences between the citizen and mainstream
samples, the data are expected to be highly representative and comparable, in light of the
fact that both classes of reporters were reconstructing specific actions rather than
evaluating individual behavior. In addition, both populations were meticulously repre-
sented, as the sample covered almost every element of the citizen website (83 percent of
all news items and 77 percent of all reporters), and provided a proportional representation
of the different beats in the mainstream sites. The use of a uniform questionnaire
throughout the study period and the fact that the reconstruction of the citizen items
covered the same time period as the mainstream sample, at least during the first wave,
further enhanced the sample’s reliability. In all, 206 citizen news items by 47 reporters
were reconstructed, alongside 278 mainstream items
6
by 30 reporters.
Following in the footsteps of McManus (1994), the study distinguishes between two
main stages of the news-making process. During the first stage, which is referred to as the
news-discovery phase, the reporter first becomes acquainted with the existence of a
potential new story. In the subsequent news-gathering phase, the reporter obtains further
information which constitutes the building blocks of the news item, since the data
acquired during the discovery phase is often incomplete and insufficiently substantiated.
Besides for the first two stages, the study also refers to another ‘‘twilight’’ stage,
wherein the initial source supplies a mix of data that fall under the category of both new-
discovery and news-gathering information. These ‘‘bi-faceted’’ contacts (which were found
in 84 percent of the citizen items and 86 percent of the mainstream items) were thus
analyzed as both a discovery contact and as a gathering one.
7
However, this measure did
not skew the overall number of contacts, which was calculated in a straightforward,
singular fashion.
In order to avoid long-winded interviews, the space for detailed responses in the
questionnaire was limited to a maximum of four news-gathering sources per item.
HOW CITIZENS CREATE NEWS STORIES 745
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Nevertheless, the study covered nearly all the contacts: 94 percent of Scoop’s items and 95
percent of the mainstream items.
On account of its exploratory nature, the study used effect size measures
(D-statistic),
8
rather than significance tests. As suggested, effect sizes of 0.200.49 were
considered small, 0.500.79 medium, and 0.80 and greater were considered large (Cohen,
1992, p. 157). Unless otherwise indicated, the unit of analysis is a single item. Most of the
tables contain mean proportions rather than percentages, for the purpose of addressing
the complexities of the gathering phase, which may involve as much as four contacts per
item. Therefore, percentages in the gathering phase were first calculated within each item,
before being calculated across the board and presented by mean proportions.
Findings
The findings provide an unprecedented insight into the ways in which ordinary
citizens make news, compared to their mainstream counterparts. The differences between
the two groups point to some of the fundamental strengths and weaknesses of the
burgeoning field of citizen journalism.
Let us begin by focusing on the ‘‘big picture,’’ namely the capacity of citizens to
produce original news. Out of all the items that Scoop published over the course of the
study’s two months (N533), over half (52 percent, N278) were found to be news
items. These items were indeed fresh news stories thanks to the strict measures that the
site maintains to ensure that the pieces it publishes are original.
9
In fact, a significant
portion of these items were apparently of considerable news value,
10
as some of them
subsequently found their way into the mainstream media.
11
The next step is to analyze the results of the research questions.
The Mix of Sources
The analysis of the source types that citizen journalists avail themselves of vis-a
`-vis
mainstream media revealed two striking phenomenon, which accord with the researcher’s
expectations: citizen reporters rely much less on human sources than their mainstream
counterparts; and the human sources that they do use are unique (see Table 1).
While human agents (seniornon seniorPR and spokespersons) constituted
about 90 percent of mainstream reporters’ contacts in both phases, citizen reporters
turned to them in only 63 percent of the discovery contacts and 53 percent of the
gathering contacts. The effect size was large: 0.93 for the discovery and 0.89 for the
gathering.
There was also a dramatic difference between the internal alignments of human
sources. While mainstream reporters leaned on senior sources and PR practitioners in three
out of every four items during both news phases, these types of sources were found in
only 0.30 of the citizens’ contacts during the discovery phase and 0.25 in the gathering
phase. The most egregious disparity concerns the use of PR practitioners and spokes-
persons, as the amount of times that citizen journalists turned to them during both phases
amounted to only a quarter of the spokespersons’ contacts with mainstream journalists.
In contrast, citizen reporters are most likely to avail themselves of non-senior
sources. Further analysis shows that these sources are by and large ordinary citizens.
12
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Number of Sources
As expected, citizen journalists tend to be less reliant on news sources. While
mainstream reporters used 2.52 human sources per item, there were only 2.18 sources
per item in the output of citizen reporters (D-statistic 0.20). However, this small
difference was rendered negligible in the final copy, as Scoop’s editors routinely added
source responses at their own initiative and thereby ratcheted up the final tally to 2.34
sources per item. According to the editors, they routinely add source responses to their
contributors’ stories because the writers often do not realize that parties that stand to be
hurt by their items have a right to respond before publication.
In addition, the researcher broke down the data into source numbers and examined
one-source items. While mainstream reporters availed themselves of a single source in
29 percent of their items, this was the case in no less than 47 percent of the citizen items
(D-statistic0.44).
News Initiative
In order to avoid overstatements, reporters’ initiative was inferred from the
technologies and communication channels that were used to acquire information. These
have already proven to be effective indicators of which party (source or reporter) initiates
each contact (Reich, 2006).
13
Table 2 outlines the percentage of contacts initiated by
citizen and mainstream reporters in the different news phases.
The likelihood of mainstream reporters taking the initiative in the news-discovery
phase pales in comparison to their citizen counterparts. During the gathering phase, the
TABLE 1
Reliance on different source types in mainstream versus citizen news items
Source type Mainstream news items
(
N
278)
Citizen news items
(
N
206)
Effect size
(D-statistic)
News-discovery phase
Senior sources* 0.21 0.17 0.10
Non-senior sources$0.14 0.33 0.49
PR and spokespersons 0.55 0.13 0.96
Other%0.11 0.37 0.66
Total 1.00 1.00
News-gathering phase
Senior sources* 0.30 0.14 0.47
Non-senior sources$0.18 0.29 0.32
PR and spokespersons 0.45 0.10 1.05
Other%0.06 0.47 1.23
Total 1.00 1.00
*Chiefs and deputy-chiefs of organizations and corporations, including the representatives of local
and national governments, parliaments, and political parties, and high-ranking army (colonel and
above) and police officers (deputy commissioner and above).
$Sources subordinate to senior sources, sources unaffiliated with any agency, and private
individuals.
%The Internet, firsthand encounters, information published by other media outlets, news room
updates, documents, and archival material.
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difference is still substantial, but by that stage mainstream reporters are already aware of
the potential items and are thus more capable to solicit their sources for more information.
Intensity of Contacts
Another facet of the citizen journalists’ limited access emerges from an analysis of
the history of reportersource contacts. As expected, Table 3 shows that the relations
between citizen reporters and their sources are far less established than those of their
colleagues in the mainstream press.
While the information provided by mainstream reporters is largely predicated on a
regular stable of sources, who are usually contacted on a daily or weekly basis, citizen
reporters primarily rely on new sources, who are contacted for the first time in order to
produce the specific item at hand.
Interaction
Both types of reporters acquired their row data with the help of 16 different
channels and technologies.
14
Table 4 categorizes these means of communication into four
TABLE 3
The intensity of prior contacts with news sources
Intensity of contacts Mainstream contacts (%) Citizen contacts (%) Effect size (D-statistic)
News-discovery phase
N
278
N
206
Initial contact 6 47 1.09
Irregular source* 9 11 0.09
Monthly 17 8 0.25
Weekly 31 20 0.23
Daily 37 2 0.90
Irrelevant$1 11 0.43
Total 100 100
News-gathering phase
N
634
N
340
Initial contact 11 54 1.11
Irregular source* 16 11 0.16
Monthly 16 5 0.36
Weekly 30 13 0.41
Daily 26 2 0.65
Irrelevant$0 15 0.67
Total 100 100
The unit of analysis is a single reportersource contact.
*Contacted several times before, but not on a regular basis.
$News-scene reporting or the Internet.
TABLE 2
Contacts initiated by the reporters
News phase Mainstream news items
(
N
278)
Citizen news items
(
N
206)
Effect size
(D statistic)
News discovery phase 0.28 0.57 0.62
News gathering phase 0.59 0.68 0.21
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basic groups. The breakdown sheds light, for instance, on the extent to which the channel
allowed for interactive reportersource contacts*thereby enabling the reporter to
negotiate the source’s version*and the prevalence of firsthand witnessing vis-a
`-vis
technology-mediated coverage.
As expected, citizen reporters interact less with their sources than their mainstream
counterparts. While telephone-mediated channels are the most common method in
mainstream reporting, especially in the news gathering phase, citizen reporters unequi-
vocally prefer text-mediated channels in both the discovery and gathering phases. On the
other hand, citizen reporters make much wider use of non-mediated contacts than
mainstream reporters, in both phases.
Discussion
The limited use of human sources, who contribute virtually all the raw data in
mainstream news (Maier and Kasoma, 2005; Sigal, 1973, p. 123; Stro¨ mback and Nord,
2005), constitutes firm evidence that citizen reporters have limited access to news sources.
By avoiding human sources, the citizen journalists are freed of the burden of having to
confront, negotiate with, and come to terms with fellow human beings. Instead, they are
more inclined to show up at the news scene and use the Web as a news source.
15
The mainstream media’s most prevalent source type*PR and spokespersons*is the
least accessible type with respect to the citizen news outlet. However, this is not
necessarily due to the editorial vigor of the citizen reporters;
16
instead it stems from the PR
industry’s tendency to ignore citizen journalism. This may change if citizen outlets attract
greater market share.
On the other hand, the input of senior sources is sorely lacking in the stories of
citizen journalist, as their remarks tend to add a sense of legitimacy, credibility, and
TABLE 4
Types of communication channels used to acquire information in both news phases
Channel type Mainstream news
(
N
278)
Citizen news
(
N
206)
Effect size
(D-statistic)
News-discovery phase
Telephone-mediated* 0.45 0.19 0.59
Text-mediated$0.41 0.46 0.09
Non-mediated%0.10 0.33 0.59
Other§ 0.03 0.01 0.11
Total 1.0 0.99
News-gathering phase
Telephone-mediated* 0.55 0.17 1.00
Text-mediated$0.26 0.49 0.55
Non-mediated%0.18 0.31 0.35
Other§ 0.01 0.02 0.07
Total 1.0 0.99
*Land-line and cellular telephones.
$The Internet, email, fax, pager, mail, documents, and archival material.
%Face-to-face interviews and news-scene coverage.
§Mass media and reporter’s experience.
HOW CITIZENS CREATE NEWS STORIES 749
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prestige to news items, along with the general outlook of a major stakeholder (Becker,
1970; McShane, 1995).
Citizen journalism endeavors to offer a platform for ordinary citizens, who are
consistently deprived of a voice in the mainstream media (Gans, 1979, p. 15; Hallin, 1992,
p. 12). However, ordinary citizens comprise only 22 percent of their total contacts, so that
citizen journalism’s claim to be the mouthpiece of the common people has only been
partially fulfilled.
The composition of citizen reporters’ source lists elucidates two of the mechanisms
that they avail themselves of in an effort to compensate for their limited news access. The
first mechanism is their reliance on personal contacts (family, friends, co-workers, and
acquaintances). These types of sources constitute 29 and 21 percent of their contacts in
the discovery and gathering phases, respectively.
The second mechanism involves using one’s personal experience as a news source.
This practice constituted 17 percent of the sources in the discovery phase and 19 percent
in the gathering phase. While the alternative media considers underscoring one’s own
experience to be ‘‘native reporting’’ (Atton, 2002a, p. 112), the mainstream media deems it
to be a controversial practice, for it blurs the line between reporter and source, and the
reporter’s additional roles as a citizen, consumer, professional, or activist are liable to
compromise his or her journalistic impartiality. That said, one cannot deny the added value
of involvement, commitment, orientation, and experience that these ‘‘natives’’ bring to the
table, as these virtues provided the impetus for some of their finest pieces.
17
Although one would expect limited access to result in fewer sources per item, the
final gap between citizen and mainstream journalism is minimal, probably due to the fact
that mainstream reporters themselves are not inclined towards diversified sourcing (Brown
et al., 1987; Hansen, 1991). However, the high percentage of one-source items corresponds
with the difficulties that citizen writers have developing full-fledged news items (Schaffer,
2007, p. 10; Wall, 2005, p. 162) as well as with Scoop’s editors who reported that their
contributors’ stories tend to be excessively short.
The willingness of citizen reporters to take the initiative, especially during the
discovery phase, is indeed a positive development, but it would be naive to attribute this
solely to their unbridled journalistic vigor, rather to their lack of a foothold in the routine
loops of source-initiated information and updates, which nourish their mainstream
counterparts.
According to the well-wishers, leaving the news initiative in the hands of lay citizens
liberates citizen reporters from the grip of the mainstream news agenda. However, the
naysayers would claim that this freedom tends to divert citizen reporters’ attention away
from the leading news agendas and onto idiosyncratic stories, so that they are out of
touch with mainstream developments.
On the face of things, the dependence of citizen reporters on new contacts in half of
their stories, during both news phases, appears to breath some fresh air into news-making
circles, for it enables people to serve as news sources even if they never did so in the past
(Gans, 1979, p. 129). However, the findings suggest that, compared to mainstream
journalism, the stock of news sources at the disposal of citizen reporters is rather meager
and recurrent use of a particular source is rare. These trends are indicative of their limited
access to news sources.
The lack of previous encounters between citizen journalists and most of their news
sources relegate both parties to ad hoc short-term exchanges, rather than role relations
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(Blumler and Gurevitch, 1981; Nimmo, 1964). On account of the unfamiliarity and low level
of commitment, trust and accountability, citizens’ sources may very well be reluctant to
entrust them with sensitive or exclusive information, which happens to be the most
difficult sort of data to attain (McManus, 1994, p. 88).
The manner in which citizen reporters avail themselves of communication channels
and technologies is symptomatic of their limited news access. In consequence, they
cannot even consider using the more sophisticated set of confrontational interview
techniques that telephone-mediated contacts allow for.
On account of their aversion of human agents, citizen journalists also prefer
non-mediated contacts, especially on-the-scene reporting. However, the prevalence of
non-mediated contacts may also stem from the ‘‘inefficiency’’ of citizen reporters. In
contrast, mainstream news reporters are less inclined to show up on the news scene
(Christopher, 1998; Russell, 1999; Zelizer, 1990).
Conclusion
Contrary to the criticism of the naysayers, who question the journalistic competence
of ordinary individuals, the citizen reporters that took part in the study displayed the
wherewithal to produce a steady flow of original news. However, they sourced and
produced their material from the vantage point of outsiders*beyond the purview of the
existing machinery that is geared towards providing mainstream news with a constant
flow of raw data.
Whereas mainstream reporters have been described as wielding the camera while
their sources hold the lighting (Sigal, 1973, p. 189), citizen reporters often assume both
tasks. Similarly, the collaboration between mainstream reporters and sources has been
likened to a tango in which it is usually the latter that takes the lead (Gans, 1979, p. 116). In
contrast, when citizen journalists take to the dance floor, they tend to lead the sources and
sometimes even go solo.
On account of the practices and tendencies of citizen reporters, there are certain
types of stories that are best left to mainstream journalists. Conversely, citizen journalists
are well-equipped to cover the following types of stories:
.Stories that are not overly dependent on human agents, especially the regular suppliers
of mainstream content and situations in which the sources are expected to make the first
move.
.Stories that can be obtained from technical or textual sources (e.g. the World Wide Web),
personal experience (e.g. as citizens or activists), and personal acquaintances.
.Straightforward issues, such as stories that do not require the following activities:
negotiating with and interrogating several sources; juxtaposing disparate versions and
voices; or elaborate processing.
.Occurrences that can be observed on a firsthand basis, instead of relying on the
testimony of others.
.Items without row information that the trustees are likely to consider too sensitive or
precious to be disclosed to people they barely know, have never met before, or will never
meet again.
In sum, citizen reporters are quite capable of producing news, but they are
hampered by a set of undeniable weaknesses, which invite a wide array of interpretations.
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Insofar as the naysayers are concerned, these weaknesses are a relief, for they bolster the
argument that citizen reporters are not ‘‘real’’ journalists. Furthermore, the naysayers
contend that the increased access of ordinary citizens to news production has resulted
in reporters with less access to news sources, who constitute the main pillar of journalism.
If mainstream ‘‘news is not what happens, but what someone says has happened or will
happen’’ (Sigal, 1986, p. 15), then less access to that same key player means less news and
newsworthiness.
Citizen reporting appears to challenge mainstream journalism more seriously than
past contenders, such as PR practitioners (Abbott, 1988, p. 225) and bloggers (Lenhart and
Fox, 2006; Lowery, 2006; Reese et al., 2007; Wall, 2005), as unlike the former citizens are not
professionals and they are more effective news makers than the latter.
There have been attempts to placate mainstream outlets’ fears by establishing a
clear division of labor, according to which citizen journalism will stick to a well-defined,
lower echelon of journalism (Lemann, 2006). However, the present study suggests that the
output of citizen reporters goes well beyond the purview of the small fry. At least some of
them measure up to the conventional standards and may even surpass their colleagues’
efforts with respect to initiative and legwork.
Citizen journalism’s well-wishers deem the limited access of citizen reporters to be a
fair price to pay for their admission to news-making. They also contend that citizen
reporters should not be appraised in accordance to mainstream benchmarks, for the genre
has its own social objectives and criteria for success (Gillmor, 2006; Nip, 2006; Schaffer,
2007, p. 43).
However, in light of the study’s findings, the well-wishers must acknowledge the
citizen journalists’ considerable limitations as producers of news. If further studies confirm
these findings, the well-wishers should consider ratcheting down the role that they wish to
confer upon citizen journalism and drawing a clear line between the roles and capacities
that are attributed to citizen and mainstream reporters.
Both the naysayers and the well-wishers may perhaps agree on the points in which
citizen journalism can be improved, so that this fledgling field can serve as a more
efficacious compliment to mainstream outlets. If citizen journalism were to attain a critical
mass of contributors and/or audiences, it would be able to take the proverbial leap
forward. A critical mass of contributors would not only outnumber the limited ranks of
mainstream journalism, but would benefit on the whole to more access, which would
markedly improve their reporting. Alternatively, were they to attain a critical mass of
readers, institutions would probably come to the conclusion that is was in their best
interest to provide citizen reporters with equal access and treat them with due respect.
In the meantime, so long as the aforementioned scenario has yet to come to fruition,
I would like to suggest three measures that promise to enhance citizen journalists’ access
to news sources and their overall performance. First, the citizen outlets should develop
incentives to stabilize the workforce or, at the very least, keep the blistering burnout rate
of its volunteers in check. Longer career spans would afford citizen reporters to develop
better access to news sources. Second, the editors should encourage their reporters to
specialize, if not in traditional beats at least in wider domains that satisfy their aspirations
and background. This measure can transform the nature of their contacts with sources
from ad hoc exchanges to full-fledged role relationship.
The third measure is the establishment of a framework for journalistic guidance that
is decidedly more robust and systematic than the system currently in place (Allan, 2006;
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Ryfe and Mensing, 2007; Schaffer, 2007). Sourcing practices encompass a wide range of
strategies and tactics that are neither intuitive nor leave enough traces in mainstream final
products for lay people to decipher and internalize their techniques. The editorial staffs, at
least in those citizen forums that maintain editors, are too small and busy to offer sufficient
instruction on their own. Therefore, the editors should even consider having mainstream
veterans train citizen reporters.
Citizen journalism and the attendant literature are still in their infancy, but given the
field’s impressive scope and rapid growth, the topic merits across-the-board research. One
of the most urgent research targets is the launching of a new sub-domain*the sociology
of citizen journalism. Nevertheless, comparative studies should also be conducted in order
to determine the added value that citizen journalism brings to the equation as a
complement to mainstream news. In particular, researchers should place an emphasis on
the degree to which citizen content adheres to professional journalistic standards and
whether the results of this sort of research is consistent with the processes explicated in
the present study.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is indebted to the Burda Center for Innovative Communication for its
generous support. Thanks are also due to Mr. Tomer Hendl and Mr. Guy Levi, from the
Department of Communication Studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, for
helping to compile the data and Mrs. Tali Avishay-Arbel for her statistical advice.
NOTES
1. Forty-nine percent of all Israelis use broadband (Mor, 2006; OECD, 2007).
2. Tsfati and Livio studied inter alia the extent to which reporters believe their audiences are
interested in news and politics. The interest levels reported by Israeli reporters were
much higher than those of their counterparts in the United States, Germany and Mexico.
3. Similar to its South Korean role model, Scoop is predicated on the contributions of
ordinary citizens (about 1000 registered contributors at the time of the study). The site
also employs four full-time editors, who are responsible for the news selection and
editing. The site is profit-oriented and its business plan includes advertising revenues and
a business partnership with a cellular operator.
4. Ynet and NRG employ considerable staffs of their own reporters and thus generally avoid
repurposing ‘‘shovelware’’ from the print edition of the same publishing groups.
5. Content analysis is limited to the news product, so that the researcher can only speculate
as to the nature of the underlying process (Manning, 2001, p. 48). Interviews can be
somewhat problematic when the interviewees themselves are professional interviewers.
Although observations can solve some of these problems, citizen reporters are too
scattered to allow for systematic observations and mainstream news organizations are
inclined to refuse requests for observations (Underwood, 1996).
6. Ynet and NRG were represented by 100 news items a piece. In the case of Haaretz Online,
which relies on the same staff for its online and print editions, reporters were asked to
reconstruct eight items that only appeared on the online version, in order to keep the
interviews down to size (another eight items that only appeared in the print version were
HOW CITIZENS CREATE NEWS STORIES 753
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reconstructed by these reporters for another study). Two items were missing, leaving a
total of 78 samples.
7. The advantage of the double analysis is that the data reflect the peculiarities of each
phase. Despite the double analysis, the differences between the two stages were still
remarkable.
8. D-statistic was used to gauge differences between the averages of the citizen and
mainstream interval variables. They were calculated as the average of the citizens, minus
the average of the mainstream reporters, divided by the pooled estimate of standard
deviation.
9. Upon receiving a new submission, the first thing that Scoop’s editors do is Google the
story’s keywords in order to make sure that the item was not already published.
According to the editor-in-chief, Yossi Saidov, some 10 percent of all the submissions are
rejected on these very grounds.
10. In order to give the reader a taste of Scoop’s finest work, I asked the editor-in-chief to
choose the three best pieces from the list of the sampled items. To follow are his choices
(headlines are followed by a short recap):
.Chief Doctor of the Parachuters Brigade: ‘‘We Were Forced to Leave Wounded
Soldiers in the Field During the War.’’ Elad Shalev, a soldier, reported on an internal
meeting that was held by combat medical officers in the aftermath of the Second
Lebanon War (published March 7, 2007).
.The Office of the Prime Ministers’ Response to Citizen’s Appeals: ‘‘Olmert Is Busy
with the Reform of the Vehicle Tax.’’ This was the official response that Jacob Avid,
the story’s author, received to queries on different matters that he had sent to the
website of the Office of the Prime Minister (published February 28, 2007).
.Clalit Health Services Turned Down a Cancer Patient’s Request for a Metastasis
Test. Dany Bar broke the story of a cancer patient. The test was ultimately
approved thanks in part to Bar’s appeal (published February 26, 2007).
11. A few of the items were presented in a weekly segment on Channel Two, Israel’s most
popular television network, featuring the best citizen stories of the past week. According
to the editor-in-chief, mainstream reporters plagiarized some of the stories.
12. While in both phases mainstream news reporters had 134 contacts with non-senior
sources*20 percent of which involved private individuals*the citizen reporters had 102
contacts with non-senior sources, 72 percent of which involved private individuals.
13. All the technologies and communication channels were divided into two groups:
reporter-initiated contacts, including outgoing land-line and cellular telephone calls,
Internet searches, face-to-face interviews, on-the-scene reporting, archival research, and
documents handed over at the reporter’s request; and source-initiated contacts, which
comprise incoming land-line and cellular telephone calls, faxes, pagers, e-mail and instant
messages, information published by other media, and documents that sources handed
over at their own initiative.
14. See Note 13.
15. The discrepancies here are striking. During the discovery phase, on-the-scene reporting
comprised 0.12 of Scoop’s contacts versus only 0.04 of the mainstream websites’
reporters (D-statistic0.29); the numbers swelled to 0.16 and 0.07 in the gathering
phase (D-statistic0.32). The Internet accounted for 0.15 of the discovery information
and 0.22 of the gathering data at Scoop, but only 0.03 of mainstream websites’
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information in both phases (D-statistic 0.44 for the discovery phase and 0.73 for the
gathering phase).
16. During internal staff meetings, several reporters reiterated their desire for more PR
material.
17. Among the top-notch stories was a paramedic who reported on his team’s efforts to
resuscitate a patient; a passenger who found himself on the same flight as the prime
minister; a social activist reporting on the court proceedings of a salary dispute pitting an
employee (who he was assisting) against an employer.
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