Stephen: Hello, I'm Stephen.

　　Rob: And I'm Rob.

　　Stephen: And this is 6 Minute English! This week we’re talking about citizen

　　journalism.

　　Rob: Citizen journalism – that’s when people who aren’t trained journalists write or

　　report about their experiences or use social media, like Facebook or Twitter, to

　　broadcast their messages.

　　Stephen: Over the last few weeks, media companies have published a large number of

　　videos, photos, phone calls and blogs from citizen journalists in countries

　　where protests have been taking place, and there aren’t many – or any -

　　traditional journalists. But as usual, I’m going to start with a question for you,

　　Rob.

　　Rob: OK, I’m ready.

　　Stephen: Which of these six countries, according to figures from internet world stats, has

　　the largest percentage of people using the internet?

　　Rob: The largest percentage of people who use the internet. OK. Have got you any

　　clues?

　　Stephen: Well, your six countries are South Korea, Japan, the US, the UK, India or

　　China.

　　Rob: Hmm…let me think. I would say South Korea.

　　Stephen: Well, I won’t tell you the answer just yet. We can find out at the end of the

　　programme. So let’s talk about citizen journalism. Could citizen journalists

　　ever replace traditional journalists? Peter Barron, the Director of External

　　Relations at Google, says there has been a massive democratisation in access

　　to information.

　　Rob: A massive democratisation – that's when people all over the world can access

　　information on the internet, and use the same tools to publish information

　　themselves.

　　Insert 1: Peter Barron, Director of External Relations, Google

　　The point here is that there has been a massive democratisation in access to information

　　and the ability to publish information – so everybody these days can be a publisher.

　　What you’ve seen time and time again, is that the very high quality material rises to the

　　top and becomes a trusted brand, alongside the trusted brands that already exist.

　　Stephen: Peter Barron from Google believes that the best quality blogs will become as

　　trusted as media companies - media brands - which already have a good

　　reputation.

　　Rob: Very high quality material rises to the top – the best blogs will become as

　　popular as traditional broadcasters or newspapers.

　　Stephen: Alan Rusbridger is the editor of the Guardian newspaper in the UK. He says

　　that traditional journalists will always be needed to make sense of large

　　amounts of information, something which citizen journalists might not be able

　　to do. He uses the example of Wikileaks.

　　Insert 1: Alan Rusbridger, Editor, The Guardian

　　The case of Wikilieaks was an excellent one; 300 million words would have been

　　completely meaningless if it had been dumped on the internet, as well as being

　　completely unsafe. It took months of Guardian, New York Times, Der Spiegel

　　journalists going through and finding the stories, redacting them and making sense of

　　them. So the journalist still has a valuable role as mediator, analyser and finder and

　　verifier of stories.

　　Stephen: Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian newspaper, who gives the example of

　　Wikileaks, where he says 300 million words, dumped on the internet, would

　　have been completely meaningless if journalists hadn’t been able to go

　　through them.

　　Rob: To go through them – finding stories and checking them. He says the journalist

　　has a valuable role as mediator, analyser, finder and verifier of stories.

　　Stephen: Journalists need to check stories – to verify them, to check they are safe to

　　publish and that they are true. Anne McElvoy from the Economist magazine

　　says that citizen journalism hasn’t really been tested yet. It’s a very valuable

　　source when the story is on the street, but not when we, the readers, listeners or

　　viewers, aren’t sure which side we should be on.

　　Rob: Whose side we should be on - who we support. When it is clear whose side

　　we should be on, citizen journalists are very valuable, but when we don’t

　　really know what’s going on, we need the traditional skills of journalists to

　　analyse material to help us understand. She says ‘we rely on the trade’ -

　　meaning the trade of the traditional journalist.

　　Insert 3: Anne McElvoy

　　Citizen journalism hasn’t really been tested yet; we’re writing a lot about it and

　　reflecting on it. But really, what we’ve seen is it being very active and also being a very

　　valuable source, I should say, but in situations where we kind of know, generally, which

　　side we are on. We know that the story is on the street. I think citizen journalism will

　　have a much tougher time when we have situations - which will arise - when we’re really

　　not sure which side should have the upper hand, or, indeed, what’s really going on. And

　　that’s an area where I think you do rely a bit on the old trade to have analysis skills and

　　to help you out there.

　　Stephen: Anne McElvoy talking about citizen journalists. So, before we go today, Rob –

　　which of those six countries did you guess has the highest internet penetration?

　　That’s the highest percentage of population who are online.

　　Rob: OK. Well, I said South Korea. Am I right?

　　Stephen: Actually it’s the UK – followed by South Korea, then Germany, Japan, the US,

　　China and finally India.

　　Rob: Well I never!

　　Stephen: And a chance to hear some of the words and phrases we heard in the

　　programme today. Would you mind, Rob?

　　Rob: OK, we heard:

　　citizen journalism

　　trained

　　social media

　　democratisation

　　to publish

　　media brands

　　to go through them

　　verify

　　hasn’t really been tested yet

　　valuable source

　　Stephen: Thanks for that, Rob.

　　Rob: You’re welcome.

　　Stephen: Well, that’s all we have time for today - we’ll have more "6 Minute English"

　　next time.

　　Rob: Bye for now!

　　Stephen: Bye!