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1. What is a citizen journalist? Can anyone be considered one?
2. What are some positive and negative aspects of citizen journalism and blogging?
3. What are the benefits and concerns of Wikipedia and WikiNews?
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7 comments:
1. What is a citizen journalist? Can anyone be considered one?
A citizen journalist are those who contribute to online blogs and discussion forums. Anyone can be a citizen journalist but only a few get attention and respect from their peers.
2. What are some positive and negative aspects of citizen journalism and blogging?
The biggest negative is the quality of reporting. Are blogs reporting accurate and sourced information?
Blogs give do give the minority opinion a chance to have their voice heard.
3. What are the benefits and concerns of Wikipedia and WikiNews?
Accuracy is a concern with WikiNews. One advantage of these two sources is immediacy.
My view on "Citizen Journalists"
First I would like to say I believe journalists are professionals like doctors and lawyers. We go to college to study our profession and we are bound by a code of ethics. Citizen journalists are bound by their own personal ethics, and those ethics may be different than the ethics that journalists uphold.
I think citizen journalists can be very important to the investigative process when covering a story. Many story tips come from the average joe, so letting them contribute their opinion can be a very important piece of the story. As journalists we need to act as the gatekeeper, making sure the information is correct.
Travis-- I like what you said about journalists being professionals. Many people consider the media to be opinionated and biased; what they don't realize is that behind the scenes, we are bound to a book of ethics similar to any other respected profession. Sure, some journalists may be corrupt, but so are some doctors, lawyers, religious figures, etc.
While I definitely agree that citizen journalists can provide useful information and viewpoints, I think the dilemma comes into play when you consider regulation. Who decides what content gets used? Who is the lucky person to edit citizens' work, knowing they haven't been educated in journalistic practices like the inverted pyramid, etc.? How much work goes into determining the accuracy and credibility of these citizens' information? It seems like it could almost be more of a burden to professional journalists in some ways.
In this age of immediacy of information, the chance for everyone to get involved is huge, but I think it's a pretty gray area to allow just anyone to be a news source.
I think that as citizen journalism become more popular people are going to have more trouble seeing the difference between citizen journalism and journalism. That may mean the truth will get harder and harder to see, people's opinions will get mixed in with facts. Like on wikipedia. Anyone can change wikipedia.. offer their own opinion about a subject, change the facts, or correct information that isn't true. A major concern with wikipedia and wikinews is loosing the truth. As long as people are smart enough to not believe everything they read online I do not worry about a problem too much, until the time comes when 'oh I well the internet says...so it must be true.'
the citizen journalist is the one who contributes in online journalism generally. Lately the number of so named citizen journalists are growing . The first and the main reason is because of development of the digital era. Right now everybody has digital cameras and even a phone to shoot things that are happening in the world and post them online and gather people's comments under it, and that's all about their journalism and I don't think it is professional, but still it usually nothing but the truth...( and the other way round too, because some of them are not reliable).
I have to agree with a lot of the other posts, the main downfall of the citizen journalist is the fact that they don't have a name attached to them. It's kind of like what I wrote on Josh's article. I think people enjoy reading blogs for entertainment and to get their minds going, but overall I think they enjoy checking out the New York Times or CNN for the actual news coverage.
Now, I think the citizen journalism isn't always a bad thing, because in the cases of videos and pictures from events such as the Subway bombings are great. They can be sent in and edited. The key word edited, that means making sure that it's a legitimate photo and things like that too.
Wikipedia is getting better, but just think of what you said the other day, when a certain student at Wartburg changed the name of Wartburg's president. Even though it was eventually caught, it was left on there for a couple of hours. What happens if that was your only contact in researching Wartburg on Wikipedia at that time, you'd probably have to believe it.
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