Journalism is changing, but how can the media accommodate amateur and professional in its trade and still be quality assured?

Even the newness of ‘New Media’ cannot keep up with the technological advances of journalism: ‘Next Media’ is now the ‘New Media’ buzzword. Regardless of what we can call this movement, journalism is a changing industry. But, from print to online, amateur to professional, what concerns me is how can it all fit together harmoniously?

Today’s journalist must have many talents. In 1871, a good journalist merely needed ‘to speak half a dozen different languages….to be a good cook, a facile musician, a first rate whist-player, a practised horseman, a tolerable shot, a ready conversationalist, a freemason, a philosopher, a moderate smoker – and a perfect master of the art of packing’ (George Augustus Sala quoted in Andrew Marr, My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism).

In 2008, add to that, fanatical blogger, compulsive ‘twitterer’, dedicated social-networker and general tech-savvy whiz-kid and you’ve got a more modern picture of today’s journalists. Yes, times have changed and they just keep on changing!

The technological changes to the form of journalism mean that the consuming public are no longer on the periphery of journalistic activity. Citizen journalism can now take part in, and inform, professional publications. The web enables anyone to inflict his or her opinions upon the world whether they can do 100wpm shorthand a minute or not.

Charlie Beckett calls this ‘networked journalism’, saying that both citizen and professional are ‘all on the same side’. Yet, a combined side seems to be unsteady territory where the quality of journalism is threatened.

The ‘pro-am’ (professional amateurs) website, NewAssignment.net has been set up by Jay Rosen to use material from volunteers to form a news site, which is controlled and edited by professional journalists. This, in essence, allows amateur and professional to interact and still maintain quality and accurate journalism.

Another ‘pro-am’ news website, Demotix, also combines ‘street’ journalists with professional journalism in an attempt to increase foreign media coverage by some organisations and champion free speech. Interestingly, Telegraph.co.uk have already used images of North Korea taken by an amateur member of the site.

Yet, journalistic material from volunteers isn’t a reassuring solution to the gulf between amateur and professional.

The ‘pro-am’ collaboration was challenged earlier this week when a citizen journalist posted false information on iReport, a site sponsored by CNN. The user announced that Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, had suffered from a heart attack causing shares to fall instantly. Worryingly, the slogan of iReport is: ‘Unedited.Unfiltered.News’.

Unregulated news might exercise freedom of speech, but it can never fully provide assured facts. If amateur and professional are going to work more closely together in ‘networked journalism’, the problem of regulating content is going to be a continual issue. BBC News’s Rory Cellan-Jones is just one of the people looking at these issues.

Ultimately, journalists cannot control editorial content on the web. Perhaps, whilst journalism as a trade will have to embrace direct amateur involvement, journalists should aim to protect some form of professionalism so that quality is not completely forfeited. But, of course, the greater ‘networked’ debate should not be stinted either.