‘News-crowding the latest trend in new media space’
News-crowding is an emerging concept in the country and is “sweeping the new media space”, providing a parallel platform to issues related to farmers and marginalised people, claim some. According to Santosh Mohan, assistant professor at the Centre for Media Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University ( JNU), news-crowding in the context of journalism is seen as a model of distributive reporting. It is also considered as a “sourcing strategy” for funds by which an organisation broadens its reach and content. News-crowding implies crowd wisdom, and crowd funding to generate content. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, a former editor who has turned to news-crowding on new media platform with his new project “TheAFiles.in”, said, “I am seeking the help of news-crowding to fulfil my projects which are intended to take on issues which traditional media houses will otherwise not raise. I am coming up with a website which will be like a repository of information without the intention of profit generation.”
Pratik Sinha, co-founder of Alt News, which claims to expose fake news, said “News- crowding worked for my project which has been involved in debunking fake news in the country. The new social media, combined with the expertise and funds raised from the crowd, has helped many people like me in carrying out true journalism.”Speaking on the news-crowding trend, Sinha said “You might have noticed that the farmers’ protest in Delhi was almost unheard of until the agitation was reported by newscrowding based multimedia sites.” Pankaj Jain, who runs SMHoaxSlayer, said: “Online media portals can’t exist without the contributions of users as it is difficult to carry on self-funded portals which require lots of resources in disseminating news. Digital media has altered the way traditional news outlets receive their information and how consumers get their news. Crowd- sourcing is increasingly considered as a problem solving approach that taps into the knowledge, energy, and creativity of a global, online community.”