05 February 2008

Citizen Journalists To Report on 2008 Beijing Olympics

Internet's blogosphere offers invaluable tool for spreading information

 

Bob Dietz, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, says citizen journalists in China report on poor living standards. (© AP Images)

By Eric Green
Staff Writer

Washington -- The 2008 Summer Olympic Games in China will be covered by a vanguard of what are called "citizen journalists" -- people who use technology like cell phones, text messaging and instant messaging to go beyond the traditional ways of reporting the news.

Melinda Liu, Beijing bureau chief for Newsweek magazine, told America.gov that the Chinese people are "really into mobile phones" and that the country has the "world's biggest cell phone-using population."

News getting into the blogosphere (weblogs or blogs posted on the Internet), she said, can be "easily seen by the outside world -- though not necessarily in China where it's relatively easy to block access to certain overseas-registered Web sites."

Liu said about 700 officially accredited foreign correspondents are presently in China, and that many more accredited journalists will be visiting China during the August 8-24 Olympics. She said the Chinese government expects as many as 30,000 foreign media personnel (accredited and unaccredited) to cover the games.

Citizen journalism is important, Liu said, because it is "more likely to reflect the tone" of "grassroots discourse and sentiment in ways that traditional media do not necessarily reflect."

COMMENTS OF JOURNALIST ADVOCATES

 

Vincent Brossel from Reporters Without Borders says citizen journalism in China "has a life of its own." (© AP Images)

Officials from two media advocacy groups recently shared their views of the importance of citizen journalists with America.gov.

Bob Dietz, Asia program coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said most citizen journalists in China are not concerned with Olympic coverage per se, but with deficient living standards in their country, and the outrage about abuse resulting from those conditions.

Dietz, speaking from Hong Kong, said citizen journalism "has a life of its own," and was practiced in China before the Olympics were awarded to the country in 2001.

Citizen journalism is not a new concept, he said, citing Thomas Paine's authorship in the 1770s of a series of pamphlets called Common Sense that advocated independence for the American colonies from England.

The advent of "digital platforms" such as the Internet, where so many people can be reached with so little effort at little cost, gives modern citizen journalism its huge impact, Dietz said. Unlike in Paine's time, when a person needed a printing press and other tools to get their views to readers, anyone in today's world who "can use a computer and knows how to type and spell" can spread information, said Dietz.

Vincent Brossel from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said Chinese national and local authorities "will do their best to prevent any negative coverage before and during" the Olympics not only by foreign and Chinese reporters but also by citizen journalists.

Brossel, head of his organization's Asia-Pacific desk, said that in recent years Chinese police and local officials are "more and more frequently" using organized crime groups to prevent journalists from doing their work. Such groups, he said, "could target human rights activists and citizen journalists."

For example, Brossel cited the case of a construction company executive and blogger who was beaten to death January 7 by municipal law enforcement officers in the Chinese province of Hubei for filming a violent attack by private guards against villagers.

Brossel said citizen journalism is important in a country like China "because the traditional media are still under [state] control." He added that citizen journalism "gives a chance for the [Chinese] audience to get access to news that is not covered," and "also obliges traditional journalists to improve their standards and the quality of the content because they are challenged by the citizen journalists."