Xinhua dives into citizens reporting

A citizen reports

The state news agency Xinhua as a nice go at the phenomena of "citizen reporting" and gives a fairly solid overview of the conundrums in the collaboration between unpaid volunteers and professional news organizations. They conveniently ignore that apart from grabbing a camera and getting footage for the traditional TV-stations, those citizens can also start their own broadcasting station for little costs. But otherwise it covers the main issues pretty well.

Cui Jianzhong, chief producer of DV Observation says, "Our citizen contributors mostly cover the stories happening around them from their own perspective, which is different from professional journalists, but closer to our audience."

Of course there is the odd bureaucrat who wonders where the world is going to when unlicensed citizen reporters roam around in China, but he is served off:

"There's no law saying that only the professional journalists can cover news. China's constitution guarantees every citizen's freedom of speech," says Guo Zhixin, legal counsel for DV Observation.

Well, that is good to hear and I will put the last quote apart for frequent usage in the future.