The Citizen Journalism Manual…

4. Making a start in citizen journalism with basic skills and equipment

Published in

PacificEdge

11 min readJul 30, 2022

Journalism, like democracy, is not something that is achieved. It is a work in progress, and not every day is as good as the last… John Maxwell Hamilton.

A mobile phone and an attachable, external directional microphone being used to record a conference speaker. The tripod the camera phone is attached to makes for stable recording and, retracted, serves as a hand grip.

THE SKILLS we need as citizen journalists depends on the type of journalism we plan to engage in. So does the equipment we use.

Writing and photography are the basic skills of citizen journalism. So too is staying up to date with trends, practice and ideas within the topics we plan to report on.

Before we delve into skills and equipment, let’s look briefly at what we as citizen journalists deal in—information, how people interpret it, and how we can enhance comprehension and understanding by how we write.

Mediating reality

Our work as citizen journalists mediates a reality to an audience. This is not value-free because the wrods we use, the questions we ask and the way we interpret what we find affects reader perceptions and understandings.

We should define the difference between reality and perception before we go any further:

reality is the actuality of what happened
perception is what individuals believe or understand about that reality.

Reality is interpreted through an individuals beliefs, values and assumptions to produce perception that may or may not be true.

In many situations, especially where our audience doesn’t have the opportunity to delve further into some topic, all they will have is what we provide. This is an opportunity for the unscrupulous to misinform and mislead. We saw examples during the Covid 19 pandemic when public ignorance of medical science was exploited by people with political and social agendas publishing disinformation that had the potential to spread disease. For us, it is a responsibility to inform as accurately and adequately as available information allows.

Doing this is a responsibility if we want our audience, whether they are a broader, general audience, a special interest audience or members of an organisation we write for, to be able to make informed decisions and to gain a rounded comprehension of something. We won’t get it right all the time.

Sources can provide partial or biased information

The information we provide is only as good as our sources, and sometimes even friendly sources can deliberately provide only limited or biased information. Especially when speaking for an organisation, they might provide only partial information because they subscribe to what has been called the pervasive ‘cult of secrecy’ that infects many organisations. As well as misusing the excuse of confidentiality when things do not need to be kept confidential, this deprives audiences of a fuller understanding.

When this happens, audiences will be quick to blame the journalist for not providing accurate information and ignore the only-partial information the source provides. As citizen journalists we do not have the resources to spend a lot of time investigating or researching that mainstream media organisations have. All we can do is ask ourselves whether what a source, whether that is a person or whether made available as written or other information, is likely to be the whole story or whether we need to go to other sources so as to report a more-complete understanding.

A good example of failing to do this this occurred in Sydney when the Eastern Courier, a local newspaper, quoted a woman who was complaining about the removal of a number of small, stunted, crepe myrtle trees from a community centre. The reporter simply took what she said as truth. She, the reporter, did not contact the council to ask why the small trees, which were blocking access from the community centre building to the open space beyond, were removed. Had she done that she would have learned that the shelter pergola that was to be built and would include a diverse range of native plants and open up passage from the building to the open space.

This was a good example of lazy journalism. Only later, when council contacted the Courier, did the newspaper print a clarifying article. By not seeking clarification on the tree removals from council and getting the whole story at the time, the Courier created a minor moral panic. The Courier’s first article was neither adequate in the information it provided nor accurate in what the complainant claimed.

Learn to write concisely and clearly

Learning to express our thoughts clearly, succinctly and accurately through the use of simple language is a basic skill in journalism.

Even if photography is our chosen media and we post images to Instagram or some other platform, we still need to write succinct, factual and concise captions to context and give meaning to our photographs. If our work is reporting on news for some technical or specialised audience we have to provide information that is adequate in quality and accurate in detail. The traditional news writing format, which we visit later in this ebook, is a means of doing this. For those whose main means of expression is the written word there is longform (so-called because it is longer than news writing, and reports in greater detail) or feature writing. This is an additional skill for the citizen journalist in the same way that video is an additional skill for stills photographers.

Conveying meaning is the purpose of language. Understanding how to use grammar such as quote marks, commas, colons, semicolons, dashes ( - ), emdashes ( — ), ellipsis (…) and others makes our text easy to read and understand. So does correct spelling, though we should keep in mind that there are several correct spellings such as the different way the same word is spelled in UK, Australian and US English. Even within a country there might be differences in spelling. All are correct because they are in common use in different countries. They are all understandable to readers of English, however editors might prefer the spelling particular to the country they publish in or where most of their readers are. When a US editor wanted to republish a story I published on my own website, he changed my Australian to US spelling and converted metric units to imperial.

The tools of citizen journalism

A tablet with a folding keyboard/cover or a laptop computer is among the basic equipment for citizen journalists.

For writing while travelling or publishing directly from the field, a small, internet-connected laptop or tablet computer is useful. The iPad shown here is equipped with a keyboard that closes to form a protective cover over the screen. Typing on a keyboard is easier than on a virtual, on-screen keyboard for most people. The tablet also serves for video editing and photo processing in the field and for uploading photos and stories to social media or websites. Although many journalists find laptop more convenient and faster to use, tablets offer less weight and bulk, however they lack the computing power and other features of laptops.

Live streaming involves direct-to-online reporting from the video feature of a mobile phone and is often in the awkward portrait or vertical format, although people are getting used to this limited field of view compared to the landscape or horizontal format.

Stills photography

The web is visual media. Posts are more often read when they are accompanied by a photograph. Your own blog will benefit by including images with stories. Research has found that the most engaging posts on Facebook include a photograph, video or graphic. A photo of something we are writing about adds another layer of meaning and can supplement a textual description by illustrating it.

Learning to make stills photographs is a basic skill for citizen journalists. Our mobile phone camera might be all the camera we need. Spending time to learn the basic skills and conventions of photography will be time well-spent. So will learning to use one of the many photo processing apps to make minor corrections to an image.

A head-and-shoulders photo of someone appearing in our of our stories does more than show the reader what an interviewee or someone quoted in the story looks like. There’s some indefinable thing about seeing someone in a photo that adds to the credibility of what they say.

There are basic photography skills citizen journalists should acquire:

the use of natural light in making a portrait and other images
posing people for portraits
the use of camera shutter speed
the use of lens aperture and zone of focus
using ISO or image speed setting
photographic composition
when to use the flash and how
camera handling, especially how to securely hold a mobile phone when using it as a camera.

These basic photography skills can be picked up on YouTube, websites, in books and magazines and at basic photography courses at community colleges. Online educators like Udemy offer affordable short courses in photography (watch for discounts).

Those publishing on websites focused solely on photography will most likely already have high-performance cameras and photo editing software. Citizen journalists do not need an expensive, high performance camera to produce images for their blogs. So long as the camera is easy to use, compact and lightweight enough to become part of the stuff they carry in their bag every day, that is all the citizen journalist needs for their blog. Those with modern mobile phones already have this, and they are getting better year by year. The important thing is not equipment. It is photographer skill. What Yvon Chouinard—climber, surfer and founder of the Patagonia adventure equipment company—said about equipment: “The more you know the less you need”, applies to photography equipment too.

A basic set

What do we need in addition to imagination and a sense of curiosity to practice citizen journalism?

a laptop, desktop or tablet computer
the ability to write clear, factual and concise text
the ability to make stills photos.

These the two skills needed to make a start as a citizen journalist. To these we can add making short videos and audio recording, and add an external, directional microphone and tripod and hand grip for stable video recording. They can be acquired later. Of course, we could specialise in only one of these, however mixing, say, text and stills photos makes stories more attractive and can enhance meaning.

Before spending on specialised equipment, see what your mobile phone can already do. Then experiment with different apps that offer greater capability than those that come with your phone. The mobile phone is a highly-capable devices and a useful technology upon which to learn the basics of photography, videography and audio recording. They are basic kit for bloggers and citizen journalists.

Moving on in skill and equipment

If you find citizen journalism to be right for you, over time you might acquire more-capable equipment.

This is a photogrtaphy kit I have used that also serves for another interest of mine—outdoor and adventure photography.

This minimal bulk and weight camera kit fits into a small shoulder bag (or backpack for outdoor photography) that does not look like a photographer’s bag, and is thus less attractive to thieves. It includes a camera (since replaced with a newer model) with a wide angle to moderate telephoto 18–105mm, constant f4 lens and a smaller, shorter range zoom lens (since replaced by a Zeiss lens) that I used when I need minimal bulk and weight when I leave the longer, heavier lens at home; a couple spare batteries and a couple spare SD cards; lens cleaning cloth (at right), compact flash suitable for use as a fill-in flash to complement natural light (I use a larger, more powerful flash when I photograph inside). The camera also shoots video. Spare batteries and cards go into the small pouch at left. The kit, less the small wide angle lens at centre, weighs 1127 grams. I chose this kit for its high quality images and its low weight and bulk, important when you hike with the kit in your pack. It is lightweight enough to tote around town all day, much lighter than the Canon DSLR kit and the Nikon D4 film camera kits I once used.

A padded insert bag by Australian company, Crumpler, inside a strong but cheap-looking bag doesn’t attract the attention of thieves. Note book, pen, phone, recharging battery and bits and peices go into the front pocket.

To improve audio quality when shooting video on a mobile phone or camera, an external directional microphone excludes most sound from the side and behind, picking up that coming in a narrow angle in front of the camera. A fuzz filter, known to videographes and a ‘dead cat’, reduces wind noise coming into the microphone. The microphone attaches to a hand grip via a virbration-dampened bracket to reduce extraneous noise and plugs into the phone connection. The handgrip can be attached to a lightweight tripod for stable shooting. The strap is security against dropping.

For interviews, a lavaliere microphone can be clipped to the interviewee’s shirt for better quality audio than you will get from your inbuilt microphone on the phone. Clip it to yourself if recording a piece-to-camera.

Camera phone with microphone attached to hand grip. A newer version of this microphone connects directly to the camera phone without as bracket.

Microphone, connecting cable to phone/camera, bracket, microphone and dead cat.

A lavaliere microphone clipped to your interviewee produces better sound than your phone microphone.

If I am going to be away from a power source for any length of time, such as when traveling, van or bush camping, in addition to spare camera batteries I carry a large-capacity battery from which to recharge my phone. I recommend at a minimum a 10,000mA lithium ion battery, pehaps a 15,000mA depending on how long you are likely to be away from a mains power source. On a multi-month roadtrip in my van I carried 10,000mA and a 7500mA lituium ion batteries to recharge my phone and iPad, and they were more than adequate. Much depends on what you use your phone for.