Interview Pt.3
HP: I think we are touching a very important topic here: what do you think about the transition from the so-called Web 1.0 to Web 2.0?
SB: I’m all up for it. Some very important developments related to Web 2.0 are citizen journalism and the end of the copyright business model.
I guess Crossroads can be seen as a citizen journalism medium (like Ohmynews, Global Voices or Café Babel). Almost none of the writers are “professional” journalists and I didn’t go to journalism school either.
Everyone is welcome to contribute to Crossroads. The only condition is that writers accept that their reporting will be supervised and their stories will be edited if necessary. I see this as a safeguard for quality and accuracy. Since Crossroads is published by the European Journalism Centre, I think we need to try to abide by journalistic standards.
Another interesting phenomenon linked to citizen journalism is the local angle. I have the impression that this is something that is going to become increasingly important in the future. Since basically everyone can become a reporter, we can find more and more local stories on the Internet. You can be publishing news in a provincial city like Maastricht and still feel at the centre of the world! That’s the gratifying thing about Web 2.0 and sharing information.
I experience the end of the copyright model to a certain extent in my work as Media News editor: for example I only visit free news websites to do my daily selection of media news stories. Also, when I look for a photograph to illustrate the first story, I usually go to a photo sharing site (this is another form of citizen journalism by the way!) like Flickr or Photobucket or Wikimedia and search for photographs with the Creative Commons licence. These are photos that are made free to use, provided that you credit the author and the source.
I always make sure to do so, because I think it’s basic ethics to attribute the work to its author.
HP: This all sounds very nice but do you see any challenges or disadvantages of Web 2.0?
SB: Having such an easy access to information from so many different sources, readers need to become intelligent consumers of information. They need to analyse the content critically because online sources are not equally reliable.
Editors are also challenged in new ways. Fostering a community feeling is a very good goal but some sort of a comment policy is essential. Spamming is a major problem. Another important question is whether we should allow all voices to be heard… What about the offensive or ignorant ones?
As an editor you don’t want to censor people’s opinions but on the other hand you need to decide what kind of community you want to welcome on your pages.
