The Real Value of "Citizen Journalism"

Nicholas Lemann’s article Amateur Hour: Journalism without journalists in The New Yorker a few weeks ago set off a tempest in the blogosphere that anyone would dare to question the world-changing power of “citizen journalism”. I’m happy to leave the journalistic value judgements to others more qualified than me, but I think there is an important business issue here for media companies. At Biz360, we struggled for over a year with the question of whether blogs were important enough to our clients, and finally decided to simply take a leap of faith - launching our first blog measurement and analysis tools in a partnership with Feedster. We were a little late to the game, compared to Intelliseek (now BuzzMetrics), Cymfony, and Umbria, but it was clear that tracking consumer generated media was a phenomenon with “legs” and clearly something that PR and Corporate Communications professionals were interested in.

In spite of the disdain of professional journalists like Lemann for this “amateurism,” media companies are being driven by business realities to incorporate more elements of “social media” into their online offerings. Advertising is what pays the bills, and media business managers are well aware of the popularity of MySpace and Wikipedia. Interactivity with a user community creates stickiness and loyalty – in other words, the same things that make a print publication attractive to advertisers. Major media brands are in an excellent position to capitalize on the “social media” phenomenon, because as Lemann points out in his article, “Often the most journalistically impressive material on… citizen journalism sites has links to professional journalism.” Media properties with well-integrated social content create for themselves a virtuous circle that can grow their readership and brand value.