It seems to me that the emergence of audiences for theatrical documentaries and the interest in online citizen media could be linked.
The Nieman Foundation of Journalism at Harvard University puts out a journal called Nieman Reports. In the Spring 2005 issue, William Marsden says that investigative reporting has gradually receded from journalism. Phillip Knightly of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said that the total output of factual programs on developing countries dropped by 50% in the past ten years.
If traditional media have cut back their investigative journalist positions (because digging into these stories takes time, and this doesn’t mesh easily with daily deadlines, and there’s less budget committed to journalists who aren’t producing copy / airtime each day), perhaps it’s created a void where readers and viewers no longer feel convinced that their media is representative of news and what is really going on.
The number of people who watch TV news is steadily declining, and in the US, the median age of nightly news TV viewers is now 59 and up (State of the News Media 2006). Perhaps our (viewers and readers) need for in-depth journalism, investigation, and global context has grown to a point that we are now willing to pay for it.
I could be wrong, after all one of the successful theatrical documentaries was March of the Penguins, so that doesn’t support my little theory.
This thought spun off from an entry today on the Center for Citizen Media blog. If we are collectively yearning for the hidden stories behind the spokespeople, it’ll be interesting to see if the launch of NewAssignment.net will reflect that. It looks like Jay Rosen’s new collaborative journalism concept may be visible online by September.
It may be an interesting outlet to pitch stories that just don’t seem to get picked up by media elsewhere.
globe-hand image by s e l v i n. Rights
Latitude Media 
somehow I feel with the introduction of web 2.0 in webworld, journalism has taken a new turn, its altogether a paradigm shift where anyone who is someone can make news & that too in a big way…the only concern is that the so called ‘newsmakers’ should control & manage their inscribes and not go ballistic in spreading info which is morally or ethically incorrect…
It’s a valid point.
Anyone searching for accurate health information on the web has likely struggled with that issue. I was interested to see a couple of day’s ago on Craig Lefebvre’s always-interesting blog (and sourced to Forrester), that although 71% of people look on the web for health info, only 16% find what they need.
Just two years ago, the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making launched. They realized there was a need for unbiased medical evidence, to help people make tough choices. A current link from their home page for example, ‘CNN has been giving viewers screening test advice that does not reflect the best medical evidence’.
I learned from the Online Journalism News feed that the Foundation’s website, called Health News Review, just this week won a prestigious 2006 Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism. Their news release is at http://www.j-lab.org/ba06finalistsrelease.shtml.
On the other hand, it could be argued that there are cases where the info of some organisations / corporations / governments, that is published as factual, may also be morally or ethically incorrect!
on line media is faster, cheaper and more convenient, but there is noyhing better than a nice cup of coffee and a good newspaper
excuse me, “nothing” was spelled incorrectly