Steve Jobs Heart Attack Rumor Raises Concern Over Citizen Journalism

This morning, a nefarious ‘iReporter’ posted a fake story on CNN’s citizen journalism website claiming that  Steve Jobs had suffered a massive heart attack and was being rushed to the hospital. As expected, mild panic ensued, bloggers and journos scrambled to get to the bottom of the story, and Apple’s stock took a quick dive before bouncing back. The story has since been denied by the Apple people and taken off of CNN’s site, and things are pretty much back to normal, as Apple fans (and shareholders) let out a group sigh of relief. But more than just creating a bit of Friday morning buzz, the events today intensified the debate over citizen journalism and how much faith we can have in the system of open reportage. David Cohn, Director of participatory journalism site Spot.us and Editor of Broowhaha.com, shared some of his thoughts on the issue:

What can we learn from the chain of events this morning?

Citizen journalism’s strength is that using it means reporters are everywhere - they are on the streets, in your schools, under your bedsheets. Twitter shows just how omnipresent citizen journalism can be. But there is often a push against it from the mainstream media for this exact reason. While 99% of the time citizen journalists aren’t malicious in their reporting, that last 1% can lead to real harm as demonstrated today. That’s why many try to adhere to what is often called pro-am or “professionals and amateurs working together.” That’s an attempt to capture the best of both worlds. CNN’s iReport is unfiltered - there is no sense of professionalism there, which lends itself to that malicious 1%.

Given that 1%, does the system still work?

The system still works - but that malicious 1% will always have to be on the reader’s mind. And on the occasion that the 1% is being active - bad things can happen. Without a doubt though - citizen journalism is a powerful and positive force.

Thanks, Dave!