Alright, so it has very little to do with the environment or development, but something must be said on youtube’s new Reporters’ Center. Launched in the wee hours this morning, the channel is essentially an amalgamation of “real journalists” advice on how to report the news. Featured journalists include such heavyweights as Katie Couric, Nicholas Kristoff and Arianna Huffington. They weigh in on everything from how to avoid being shot while working in the field to what to do when the celebrity actor you’re interviewing is stonewalling you. Compelling stuff indeed.
While the Reporters’ Center is full of interesting tricks of the trade, I’m left feeling irritated by the arrogance of it all. Yes, we know the use of twitter in Iran was a “new media/citizen journalism revolution.” But so what? This is not news to those of us who spend our days crawling youtube, blogs and tweets in search of stories. So called ‘citizen journalists’ know how to use the web to report on news – they’ve been doing it better and longer than these professional journalists who now have the audacity to weigh in on ‘how it’s done.’ More often that not, their videos culminate in a convenient plug to their own youtube channels. At times it seems the Reporters’ Center is little more than a failed attempt for traditional media journalists to get with the times and reassert a position as a ‘real’ journalists.
Though maybe that’s too harsh. Much of the content is focused on creating new opportunities for storytellers who push the boundaries of the medium. At the end of the day, I think we can all agree that pushing boundaries is the only way journalism will crawl out of the pit it finds itself in.
