Citizen Journalism- In us we trust

Hello all and welcome to this week’s blog posting. Today I will be discussing topics such as citizen journalism, blogging, and how to sort through it all. First off, what is citizen journalism? Well according to Dr. Anthony Curtis from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, citizen journalism is the gathering, writing, editing, production and distribution of news and information by people not trained as professional journalists. These citizen journalists collect and analyze news on blogs, wikis and sharing websites suing tablets, laptops, cell phones, digital cameras and other mobile and wireless technologies. So, all of us that write blogs, add information to websites such as Wikipedia, we are citizen journalists. On our readings this week, they talk about citizen journalists, bloggers and how people are more trustworthy of blogs than professionals. How did this come to be? Well, I believe it is surprisingly simple. People tend to trust people they know, people they see every day or people they could actually meet. Think about this, if you meet this big time financial analyst that is all about business and making money for themselves who would you trust? Now, is citizen journalism a good thing or bad thing? I believe it has it pros and cons and I'm going to explain why.

Pros of Citizen Journalism

There was one point in time before the explosion of the internet that people had to mail in letters to get their voices or points out to the general public. Now with the internet we have today, it is possible to reach everyone on earth who has Internet and mainstream media has taken notice. Despite budget cuts to U.S. newspapers, mainstream media outlets have moved to incorporate elements of citizen journalism into their news programs and publications. Cable news network’s solicit viewer photos and videos of breaking news stories while newspaper reporters write blogs and update twitter accounts inviting reader interaction and participation. Say for instance you have a local news paper that doesn't have the staff to cover something going on at city hall. You can have bloggers step in to publicize issues that matter to local readers. Where I live we get the major newspaper everyday but we also have a local newspaper that publishes once a week. The building that publishes the local paper is small and I'm sure the staff is even smaller so having bloggers and other citizen journalists contribute to the paper can only be good for the city. Citizen journalism gives the ability to reach areas or situations where regular journalists are prohibited or unavailable. It can supplement mainstream media by providing instant/real-time coverage. With the rise of smartphones it has become so easy to take pictures and videos and instantly upload them online where news stations can use them. Citizen Journalism has definitely become a big thing today. We read an article a few weeks ago we read about the Cleveland Indians breaking away from traditional media and inviting anyone with a social media account to apply for single-day credentials to gain access into the suite on the media level and game day information. If that doesn't tell you that citizen journalism is here to stay I don't know what else will. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Vine, and all other social media have made it possible to express our views more than ever. It has made the world so much smaller and it is very exciting. It has also made it all the more dangerous because of all of the information on the World Wide Web and I will get into that next.

Cons of Citizen Journalism

There are just as many cons to citizen journalism as there is the pros. For starters, most citizen journalists are not trained in journalism. They don't adhere to certain standards like fact checking, naming sources, searching out opinions on both sides of an issue and avoiding libelous statements. Another issue we are facing is the rise of the Internet as a communications tool has led to massive budget cuts to U.S. newspapers. If you can access most of the news you want to know online, why would you go out and buy a paper? I myself rarely buy a paper or watch the news because I can access all of that information online. When I log into my email it automatically gives me links to check the local and national news. People that I'm friends with on Facebook will post something that's going on in the area and I can click on the link to or Google search for whatever they are talking about. With all of this instant access to information, why wait on the news, magazines, or newspapers to publish it? Lets get back to professional journalists. Professionals often view citizen journalists with skepticism because they don't uphold the traditional journalistic value of objectivity. They say reports from citizen journalists are subjective, amateurish and inaccurate. They see citizen journalism's quality as not professional and its coverage spotty. They believe that only professionally trained journalists can understand the ethics required which that can be argued on both sides. It could also be argued that citizen journalists could compromise security, lead to riots, have greater error margin and report biased news.

Source Diversity

According to the article by Serena Carpenter (Source Diversity in U.S. Online Citizen Journalism and Online Newspaper Articles) traditional news organizations have begun to adopt online citizen journalism such as USA Today bringing in online citizen generated content or CNN with their 3,000 citizen journalism submissions per month. My local news station is always getting posts, pictures, and videos from people in the community. Despite the controversy and the effect this is having on news today, having a diversity of sources can only help. You get information that is outside the box and not standardized, typical content. Herbert J Gans argues that the diversity of sources present in the news media is the answer to reducing biases of reporters. With more information out there it makes for more diversity in the sources which will lead to less error. In the end I believe that the pros outweigh the cons of citizen journalism and traditional media outlets will continue to incorporate citizen journalists into their world. This can only benefit us the public in the end as long as the sources are deciphered for credibility. Thank you for reading my blog this week and I will be back next week.