China and Georgia Citizen News Coverage Edit
Letting the People Report

Georgia and Russia are now on the brink of a full-fledged war, at the same time as the Beijing Olympic Games, leaving global media flustered as they are torn about where to focus coverage.

Of course, most journalists would prefer to cover the lively, cultural and celebratory events surrounding the Olympics in Beijing, but really ambitious journalists looking for breakthrough stories might be more inclined to take the risk and head to Georgia.

But why send anyone to either place?

Instead of sending journalists from leading newspapers and broadcast media stations into war torn places, more media outlets are relying on getting the inside scoop from the people that are already there.

Letting those in Georgia give the scoop not only saves the well-being and perhaps even the lives of journalists, but it offers citizen of Georgia a chance to be heard. News consumers are happy as a result as well because they know the information hasn’t been skewed by the media outlets.

Citizen journalism has become increasingly popular, but some of the bigger, more influential media outlets are still apprehensive to make use information the public is willing to share.

Slowly, however, we are beginning to see changes…

The first six photos are from the New York Times who published a story covered by three journalists on location, and written by one writer.

The last four images are from Flickr user Theatrum Belli.

What’s interesting is that the New York Times used an image (the fifth one in the gallery) from Flickr user Teo Kokhodze, it’s the last one in the gallery. Either this is a staff photographer, or the NY Times has caught on to the powerful journalistic possibilities of Flickr.

Some citizen news sites covering Georgia include DigitalJournal.com and even more comprehensive, NowPublic.com and GroundReport.

Though no one can say for certain, making use of the people already there has a good chance of being the mode of news delivery in the future.