Citizen Journalism

The internet itself turned out to be a very interesting entity. With its existence, a lot of things are starting to change. One profession that is starting to shape in a different way is journalism. As technology keeps getting more advanced, journalism starts to branch out more. This is where the rise of citizen journalism emerges.

Citizen journalism refers to any type of news gathering and reporting -- writing and publishing articles about a newsworthy topic, or posting photographs or video of a newsworthy event. This is done by members of the public rather than the professional news personnel.

Back in the day, professional journalists were the only ones who had access to the technology to publish their work to a large audience. If someone wanted to contribute to the news, that person could write in to the editor or pass around a homemade publication through the mail.

Today, anyone can share newsworthy information and opinions as long as you are equipped with a laptop and a decent internet connection.

The whole idea about citizen journalism has been controversial: what does it mean to be a "professional" journalist if everyone is a journalist? The argument is that real journalists adhere to certain standards like fact checking, naming sources, searching out opinions on both sides of an issue and avoiding libelous statements. You don't necessarily need to have a degree in journalism or carry credentials to practice these principles, but publishing a personal opinion about anything does not necessarily make you a journalist.

In my own opinion, I feel that citizen journalism has been and still is a great help to the news community. One of the driving forces behind citizen journalism is that mainstream media are not the exclusive center of knowledge on a subject. The audience knows more collectively than the reporter alone. It's great that there are more people getting involved - people who actually know about stuff get to communicate.

There are pros and cons to everything and citizen journalism is no exception. Looking on the bright side, citizen journalism allows you to include more people, more voices and other stories from different points of view.