Medialab Prado

For some time now, citizen participation in preparing the news is a fact that has socially transfomed the way information is approached and which is obliging the traditional media to reconsider their objectives and how they operate.

In this last year, several international television channels have decided to try this idea. In Spain, only TVE and ANTENA 3 have attempted to take a more serious approach to citizen participation.

TVE runs “Cámara Abierta” (Open Camera), the citizen participation slot in the La 2 Noticias news programme. We cannot and do not expect citizens to prepare news in a professional way. Neither can we expect them to repeat the classical narrative formulae of the TV news programmes. Citizen journalism has the advantage of being able to provide a particular outlook that is personal and fresh. That is the objective that we seek: to incorporate the new communication languages that come from alternative media in professional television.

The idea is: "If you have a concern or worry, then you have a news programme to air it on". Because at La 2 Noticias, practically all of the videos that we receive are broadcast on the programme, on an independent basis and with the people’s own voices.

It is evident that people do not as yet have enough technical knowledge to make the most of all of the resources when recording or editing or to know how to use various formats. In this regard, we have also tried to go one step further. First of all, by drawing up a series of tutorials to guide the citizen journalist and secondly, insofar as possible, by making the work of those who want to tell something on La 2 Noticias easier. Something along the lines of: “if you are not able, or don't know how to do it, we will do it for you", which means that we can intervene in any part of the process for which the citizen-journalist requests assistance. We have even gone so far as to lend cameras for recording some specific ideas.

The whole idea is articulated via the portal www.la2noticias.tve.es