03.09.2010 at 4:28 pm | Have your say »

Too good to be true: As citizens produce their own paper

The offices of Gießener Zeitung

The paper focuses on local topics that are important to people of Gießener, in short it is a people oriented newspaper that comes out twice a week- Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Germany first-ever citizen paper GZ started in December 2008. It has a circulation of 120, 000 and it is distributed for free.

GZ sales manager to Christian Masthoff, says the paper has been a success.

“We wanted to experiment new ways of entertaining the reader and their participation is one of them. This paper is for Gießen citizens writing for themselves. Its reliable and we trust our reporters,” he said.

Citizen Journalism is the concept of members of the public playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information.

GZ, which produces 70% content from citizen journalists, comes out in both online and print versions. Untrained people are taking photographs and filing reports on events which once would have been the sole preserve of our media outlets.

For one to write, he or she has to register at GZ website.(www.giessener-zeitung.de).Most people who contribute here are between the ages of 35-50.

There are two professional journalists who have the final decisions on which stories are published on the newspaper, and about 10 freelancers to fill the gaps when there are few stories.

Advantages and disadvantages

Simone Linne the editor of GZ talking about the pros and cons of having a citizen journalist newspaper

However, journalists at the publication admitted that there are both advantages and dangers of using content from citizen journalists.

Simone Linne one of the two editors at GZ said some of the advantages of the paper include, having a chance for them to find out issues about people in the area.

“Journalists don’t have eyes everywhere so having citizen reporters will get you a chance to find out what’s happening,” she said.

“Another advantage is that people are coming out with true stories, 95 percent of the content is true, and our people respect the newspaper.”

She says coming up with a citizen paper is a marketing strategy as advertisers were interested in the paper.

However she says some of the dangers they face with their citizen reporters was on the issue of reliability.

“Since they are not paid for their contributions sometimes they would not write stories and in this case we would call freelance journalists to fill the gap.” She said.

Sometimes the material and the style would be sub-standard, she says. “Its too much work, at times we have to rewrite the stories because the sentences would be too long,”

Power to the people

The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers commended the newspaper on its decision to embrace user-generated-content.

“This is a beautiful example of user generated innovation and risk taking within the newspaper and media industry.” The group said in a report.

The publishers’ board said they found the idea of having a citizen newspaper interesting and appealing.

“Power to the people! Innovative and consistent realized project. A brand which acts as a platform and not as a multi-channel approach.”

A GZ journalist at work

GZ a threat to traditional media

Meanwhile Burkhard Brauning the deputy editor in chief of Gießener Allgemeine said quality journalism was still important and GZ and they do not consider GZ as a competitor since it is not producing quality news.

Gießener Allgemeine is a traditional newspaper that still believes in professional journalism.

“We can’t rely on citizen reporters; we should not sell lower quality news to our readers.”

He however admitted that GZ was taking business from them as advertisers now opt for the community newspaper.

| Tagged Case Studies, citizen journalism, Gießener Zeitung, Local News, Newspaper