Citizen journalism doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it is understandable that often times they aren't taken seriously. People seem to just expect that once they have started their own blog, they automatically gain credibility which isn't always the case. Citizen journalists have to earn their credibility (and rightfully so) by doing the same things that journalists themselves do.
Journalists seem to have their credibility just given to them when they enter into a known publication, and rightfully so in my opinion. If a well known publication trusts the reporter and you trust the publication, then it makes sense that you would trust the journalist as well. Citizen Journalists don't have that same sort of luxury. When they write something people often look at it with a bit more scepticism because, well let's face it, anybody can start up a blog about anything.
That's not to say that citizen journalists can't gain the trust of readers. Certainly they can, but it takes more time. They have to do both the jobs of the journalist and the editor, and for that reason alone, a good citizen journalist should be given credit for their work. On "The Best of Twitter: FTC Workshop" Rupert Murdoch brings up the point that sometimes citizen journalists just take the work that professional journalists have done and claim it as their own, and that is a major hurdle facing good citizen journalists.
Citizen journalists have to overcome the perception given to them because of some of their unworthy brethren. The citizen journalists who takes stories from professional journalists who work on them over a long period of time are what is holding the rest of the citizen journalists back from being a solid source for news, but good citizen journalists can overcome the negative outlook that lots of people have on them.
The truth is that with the new technologies and different ways of communicating citizen journalists are going to play a major role in the way that we hear news. People think that citizen journalism will eventually make professional journalism obsolete, but the way I see it, if citizen journalists are the only source of news, won't they eventually want to get paid for it? And if they are getting paid wouldn't that mean they are doing it as a profession? And if they are doing it as a profession, wouldn't that make them professional journalists?
Image from: http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/101608/im-a-journalist.gif
"...a good citizen journalist should be given credit for their work."
ReplyDeleteError: subject/antecedent agreement
Correction: "...a good citizen journalist should be given credit for his/her work."
or
"...good citizen journalists should be given credit for their work."
Your picture could have been resized so people can actually read what the cartoons are saying.
ReplyDelete"The citizen journalists who takes stories... have on them."- This shortened sentence comes from paragraph four and is a wonderful example of a run-on sentence.
"...different ways of communicating citizen journalists..."- This sentence found at the beginning of paragraph five could use a comma between 'communicating' and 'citizen'.