Peter Horrocks, head of the newly integrated BBC News operation, set out his view of citizen journalism in a speech at the University of Leeds’ Institute of Communications Studies, published in full on the BBC Editors blog in January 2008.
His awkward question was about weight: how responsive should editors be to comments from the public when fewer than one per cent of readers of the BBC News website leave one? The reply offered here was that low participation is normal rather than disappointing, and pointed to Jakob Nielsen’s 90-9-1 rule — 90 per cent of users lurk, nine per cent contribute occasionally, and one per cent account for most of what gets contributed. Wikipedia showed the same distribution. What that leaves unresolved is whether a small active minority can make a better news experience for the majority, or whether such forums turn into a dialogue of the deaf.
The more interesting role, on this reading, was agenda-setting rather than supply. Horrocks noted there was “little doubt of the enormous value of audience-provided information and media in enhancing the coverage of news events”, and that sourcing pictures and video from the audience had already become routine. The next stage was working with the audience to identify and develop stories, which the BBC had already done on contaminated fuel and on the condition of army barracks. That, rather than the volume of comments, was where public participation was said to pay.