Citizen Editors Too?

Ramblings

from the sure,-why-not dept

With all the hype about “citizen journalism” these days, it pays to remember that not everyone likes to write. So, some are trying to make it easier for people to participate by creating a system of “citizen editors” where people can indicate which news stories they find most interesting, and the system builds a front page based on what the most people choose. It’s sort of an alternative to Google News, which is set up by an algorithm, or other pages that are set by specific editors whose job it is to choose which stories go where. The site itself, Common Times appears to be down right now, but it will be interesting to see how well it works. There are, obviously, some advantages to it — in that it shows what people are really interested in, but there are disadvantages as well. To some extent, this type of thing builds up the “lowest common denominator” of stories, while leaving others — which may be better or more interesting — hidden, if they’re less sensationalistic. That may still be valuable but it has its limitations as well.