Citizen Journalism Blog Post

Should We All Become Citizen Journalists?

The new technological advances to date create a society where everyone has the ability to become a journalist. However, just because everyone has the ability to become a journalist that doesn't necessarily mean that they should report. A citizen journalist actually raises many ethical concerns and moral issues when reporting on a topic. As a society, we have been groomed through the years to accept the news as fact. If it was on the news, it was fact, as they had people who’s job was to check the facts of a story. The only thing that was doubted was the weather. At least some things never change. Now we live in the age of mass information. Sharing news with people is now as easy as the click of a mouse button. However, where is that “news” coming from? One of the first things that my journalism instructor Rob Priewe made sure to press upon us was to check your sources. This is something that is more important now for more people, than ever before. In this current state of overabundance of information, where anyone with an email address can start a blog, it is now up to the consumers of this information to do the fact checking. However, most of them have not been informed of this, or choose not to practice it. With the advent of social media, the sharing of this misinformation becomes even more widespread. Ciitizen journalist is in a simple way explained as a non-journalist doing the job of a professional journalist. The job varies from writing, posting a status or tweet, taking a photo or a video, researching and ending up delivering information out in the public’s eye. A citizen journalist can chose to put the information up on their own, or giving the media a tips and working together with them. For those who gives out the information not intending to give news is nowadays seen as a great tool for the media. The media don’t have the capacity to be in several places at ones, and when an event happens suddenly the citizen journalists is a valid asset for the media. They can get a hold of exclusive pictures and video footage on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and put that content in a professional context, then giving the public what they want which is news.

Sources: 

http://www2.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/Courses/ResourcesForCourses/Journalism/CitizenJournal  ism.html 

http://theiblog4media.blogspot.com/2012/04/citizen-journalism-good-thing-or-bad.html