Is Plagiarism a Necessary Evil of Citizen Media?

 

Citizen media platforms are solving problems that mainstream media can’t. These platforms do a better job than traditional models of giving everyone a voice in and access to relevant news — by definition, they empower anyone to participate. 

 

Yet there’s one, seemingly-intractable problem that mainstream and citizen media share: Plagiarism. And while plagiarism in mainstream outlets is usually blamed on “one bad apple,” the openness and inclusiveness of some citizen media projects has led to allegations that they’re turning a blind eye to plagiarism — or even encouraging it. 

Last week, Changemakers ran into the issue head-on. Following a Google Alert, our editors discovered a story published on the citizen media site AllVoices. The article, written by John Converse Townsend, was originally published here on the Changemakers blog. On AllVoices, it was attributed to a different name, with no link back to the original source. 

 

We flagged the problem on AllVoices. But, as of this writing, the piece hasn’t been removed, and the “author” responsible is still active. 

 

So we started wondering: Is plagiarism a necessary evil of citizen media? 

 

AllVoices was founded with the best intentions. Venture capitalist Amra Tareen first conceived of it after she witnessed the aftermath of the devastating 2005 earthquake in her home country of Pakistan. She wanted to share her impressions of the tragedy, but there was no platform for it. Launched in 2007, AllVoices currently claims 450,000 writers who publish 1,500 stories daily. 

 

But with only computers to monitor content (indeed, the site touts the fact that it is "unedited by humans,") there are reports of plagiarism, serious factual errors, and even pornography. While the lack of a human editor suggests a powerful potential to expand rapidly, it also creates a serious challenge for preserving integrity and trust with the community. 

 

Plagiarism is much more visible in mainstream media. A journalist at Politico resigned this week over allegations of plagiarism. And here’s a disheartening reminder that all platforms are vulnerable to abuse from outside: Sesame Street’s YouTube account was recently hacked, and the videos replaced with graphic pornography. 

 

Still, these media networks can rely on old-fashioned solutions. At Politico, editorial review led to the reporter’s resignation. At Sesame Street, corporate resources and the cooperation of Google made it possible to shut down the channel until the breach could be sealed. Most citizen media platforms don’t have these resources. 

 

But there’s more than one way to stop plagiarism. From the Citizen Media competition, here are three entries that are creating new, disruptive models for media — along with new ways to preserve journalistic integrity. 

 

The Banyan Project — “Reader-Owned Coops”

 

With a design based on the co-op model that works for many banks and grocers, Banyan Project is creating local outlets to serve “news deserts” — communities where traditional media sources have folded. The cooperatively-owned newsrooms will give people news “relevant to their lives, respectful of them as people, and worthy of their trust.” Staff editors — along with pressure from the community of reader-owners — will help preserve journalistic integrity.

 

 

 

 

Hosh Media is creating a bridge between mainstream and citizen media in Pakistan. While the Pakistani mainstream media is flourishing, the founders of Hosh Media felt that the voices of people under the age of 30 were not being represented. Social media can’t fill the gap in a country where only ten percent of the population use the Internet.  

 

Hosh Media brings youth voices to the mainstream by crowd-sourcing citizen videos, images, and reports and then curating them into stories to be published by mainstream outlets — meaning all material will be subject to the same scrutiny as mainstream reports.

 

 

 

DevIneMedia — “Crowdsourcing the Voices of Young People and Civil Society in Lebanon”

 

The founders of DevIneMedia originally created Hibr Lubnani, a free, youth-run monthly newspaper designed to encourage youth to raise their voices and participate in Lebanese civil society. However, the founders discovered that their students were unfamiliar with journalism, and ran into frequent instances of plagiarism. 

 

As a response, DevIneMedia is developing an interactive platform that will publish work encouraging civic activism, reviewed by a youth-led, volunteer editorial board. And to foster a sense of integrity, the program is complemented by a training program that encourages critical thinking and journalistic ethics. 

 

 

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Have you seen a solution for curbing plagiarism in our Citizen Media competition? Take a look at the other entries — voting begins in just a couple of weeks, on November 9.