The rise of citizen journalism

Hello, my name is Arik Hanson, APR. Full disclosure: I am a board member of Minnesota PRSA and the liaison to the programming and networking committee. Last week I had the privilege of participating in one of Ragan’s Social Media Workshops led by the incomparable Shel Holtz. For two full days we discussed the potential business impact of a host of social media tools that have burst on the scene the last few years—including Twitter, FriendFeed, Second Life and Facebook and how we, as communications professionals, can leverage these tools to start meaningful discussions with our key stakeholders to create value for our organizations.

What I found fascinating about the conversations was how quickly the democratization of content has changed the way communicators interact with their audiences (just look how multinational corporations like Kodak and Starbucks are leveraging social media to build their brands). To me, this sounded eerily similar to a trend that’s taking hold in media circles: Citizen journalism. Much like social media, citizen journalism (or, participatory journalism), has given readers and customers a voice. It’s changing the way we consume our news. While social media tools like blogs, podcasts and YouTube have allowed anybody with a computer and internet access the ability to shape, influence and change the perceptions, attitudes and behaviors of our audiences (see what happened when two guys got creative with the Coke and Mentos brands), citizen journalism has given those same folks the ability to directly contribute to the news in their community.

Interested to hear more? (Here’s my shameless plug—remember, full disclosure) Attend an interactive session on citizen journalism at American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio’s offices in downtown St. Paul on Thursday, June 19. We’ve assembled an all-star cast of journalists, editors and producers who will discuss the changing model of journalism and how you, as communications practitioners, can take advantage of this new trend to help better tell your organization’s story to your key audiences. Visit the MN PRSA Web site for complete details. I look forward to seeing you next Thursday. (Also, big thanks to Ryan for giving me the opportunity to guest blog).

iReport, CNN and PR???

For those of you PR savvy folks maybe some of you have explored CNN's new iReport. "iReport For CNN" is being hyped as the first interactive, international weekly half-hour TV news program comprised of iReporters -- and the stories behind the scenes at CNN.

This is citizen journalism at its finest. Now anyone can download stories, photos and videos on anything and if it is popular enough it will show up on CNN's half-hour iReport television show hosted by award-winning anchor Michael Holmes.

At first glance it seems a lot like YouTube, but it is clear that CNN is working to stay in front of the "user-generated generation." Watch a sample of iReport here.