The Other Side of the Page

Tired of the media getting the news wrong all the time? Then do it yourself.

From the San Francisco Bay to the heart of the Bluegrass State, some of the people who run the news-writing racket are soldering two common words into a movement that they say will change the way Americans receive their information: "citizen journalism."

The idea is not to replace professional reporters, but to complement them: Let the readers become writers; fill the news holes that today's media don't fill by serving the underserved and representing the underrepresented. Depending on whom you ask, the movement started as early as 1988, but a recent confluence of popular weblogs, notable media mistakes, and the infinite depth and breadth of news on the Internet have built citizen journalism its very own watershed.

But even the most well-intentioned revolutions produce negative side effects. Take the case of the Ventura County (Calif.) Star. The paper extolled the on-topic feedback and debates that it hosted since it began the "Comments" section in January, but explained last week that the section had to go: "[S]ince the beginning, there have also been those who abused the system. Their comments were full of profanity. They personally attacked individuals, both persons related to news stories and others who were commenting on the website. They posted pornographic comments. They turned the comments into a personal chat room. We have been able through monitoring to control most of those abuses. However, the abuses have grown in the past few weeks to the point that we feel we must shut down the system."

John Moore, the paper's assistant managing editor for new media and technology, said the Star didn't have the staff to monitor the discussions, which he said, "spun out of control, with readers peppering posts with profanity and engaging in personal attacks," the Los Angeles Times reported. "Even the most routine story would degenerate into a string of invectives, often centering on ethnicity and immigration status," the paper said.

The Times noted that forums on other news Web sites have experienced similar problems:

The San Francisco Chronicle: "'It was almost impossible to control and it took more staff time than we could devote to it,' said Vlae Kershner, news director for the Chronicle's website. 'We particularly had problems with fans of sports teams. A group of 49ers fans and Raiders fans once tried to arrange a fistfight after a game. ...That was one of the low points.'"

The Rocky Mountain News: "Problems arose when the paper hosted a forum about the Columbine shooting, which ran for about a year after the 1999 incident. Initially, the forum was a way for readers to offer condolences to victims' families, but grew into a larger discussion that turned ugly as the shooting probe continued."

The L.A. Times itself: "A significant problem surfaced last June during the NBA championship round between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Detroit Pistons, said Richard Core, editor of Latimes.com. Readers were asked to comment on how they thought the series was going, but the conversation devolved by the second day. 'It started out with people tossing in their comments about who is playing well and who isn't, about how Shaq was performing and how Kobe was performing,' Core said. 'But then people just descended upon it and turned it into this free-for-all. I don't know that any of the comments were racist, but they were off-color and disruptive and so we had to shut it down.'"

A personal anecdote: I complimented a colleague here at washingtonpost.com on the amazing amount of reader feedback that he received for one of his blog postings. His first questions: "Uh-oh. What did they say? Do we have to take down any comments?"

It seems like the common lament is the lack of staff to make sure that people don't turn the marketplace of ideas into Haymarket Square. That's an understandable worry; the media business isn't exactly booming with job opportunities these days.

Citizen journalism could clarify the fuzzy future that news organizations face, but anyone who has used the Internet for more than a few years knows they can't just hand the car keys over to everyone who wants to go for a spin. Some people will produce stories, photos and accounts from the world around them that will make the editors wonder why they haven't been scooped up by the competition already. But others might make their name by hurling invective under the imprimatur of a mortified editorial board.