Citizens greedier?

The time has come for me to begin to decide what I want to write about in the online feature article I must submit before the end of term. It’s not an entirely original choice of subject matter, but I intend to write about citizen media, and the rise of blogging and user-generated content.

As a trainee journalist, I still believe that journalists have an important role to play in the education and enlightenment of the general public. But in an age of impatient, customised news-viewing, are traditional news values being eroded? I worry that changes to the way journalism is delivered will soon make it too easy for people simply to ignore the news they don’t want to hear – regardless of its importance.

I am also concerned that, in the battle for a greater audience share, institutions like the BBC will have to pander to the whims of their increasingly mobile audience to such an extent that their traditional values will be lost. I have already touched on this in my blog on Pete Clifton’s lecture.

Is the democratisation of the media a good thing? How do journalists remain relevant? And above all, will the rise in user-generated content and the growth of customised news-viewing lead to lazy, quick-fix journalism that shuns the pressing issues to give the audience a slice of what it wants?