By Venisa
Anne Xavier
“Inky-fingered old hacks were out and iPhone-wielding hoodies were in. Journalism in the future wouldn’t even need journalists — not professional ones anyway. Everyone with the latest tech and a blog would be a journalist; recording events as they unfolded, pontificating on discoveries and developments, even seeing wrongs and trying to right them.”
- Stephen Khan
It is the fearless mind that captures out of the ordinary events as it is happening and shares it with the rest of the world because it understands that is what the world needs – the truth. To reveal the truth when the state or corporation owned media opt to deny the privilege and mask the truth with twisted lies to serve their hidden agenda, as if the so-called professional “truth-seekers” are doing a good job at it. Losing faith in mainstream media, amateur citizens intervene the scene, unsurprisingly doing a way better job than most members of the press and becomes, unexpectedly, a revolutionary power today – citizen journalism.
At least that’s what they say.
What
is Citizen Journalism?
Simply put, citizen journalism is when an
average individual takes up the role of a professional journalist – reporting
news.
“The Internet gave average people the ability to
transmit information globally. That was a power once reserved for only the very
largest media corporations and news agencies.”
– Tony Rogers
The emergence of smartphones and social media
are enabling citizens to report more newsworthy information than the news media.
Various platforms like Twitter and blogs just to name a few, have revolutionized
journalism and are ready to the public to upload their news contents. Now with
just a click of a button, citizens present at the scene are able to cover
newsworthy events more instantly than sending in the news teams. But does this
mean citizen journalism is a threat to the traditional journalism as the former
is pretty much doing the same, if not better than the latter? Before we get to
that, let’s take a look at positive and negative contribution of the highly
buzzed about journalism.
Pros
and Cons?
Pros
1) Different
perspectives from the mainstream media – diversified opinions from the
public, giving fresh breath of air to current news or issues
2) Expose
of unconventional news – something the media don’t or refuse to tell
3) Unrestricted
news/information – possible newsworthy coverage events that may be missed
from the news media arena
4) Unbiased
– neutral stance on certain issues as media portrayal can be biased at times
Cons
1) No
formal training – risk to factual inaccuracies, lack of credibility, and
verity of the news is questionable, in which these marred citizen journalism
2) Lacks
ethics and objectivity – citizen journalists do not share the same
commitment as professional journalists
3) Danger
of possible defamation – having no knowledge on libel law only leads to
libel suits
4) Biased
– too personal views and truth of the news may be fabricated to fulfill their personal/political
agenda
Citizen Journalism vs. Traditional Journalism
What truly sets citizen
journalism apart from traditional journalism is whether the individual practices
responsible journalism or the “journalistic truth” such as in-depth research
and fact-validating, to heighten the quality of citizen-produced news content.
Citizen journalism can be a
great thing. In fact, it is a media revolution that brings journalism to
another level as it promises various views and engagement with its communities
that share common interest. The notion that citizens could substitute journalists,
if ever, with the aid of mobile technology and social media is simply unrealistic,
albeit also known for great work with genuine quality.
Even without degree or
experience in the journalism field, almost anybody can put something out on the
Internet, but does that make them a journalist? If so, does that mean the professional
journalists are no longer relevant in the news media arena? As some claims,
citizen journalism is already “killing” the real journalism.
Everything considered, could
it be possible that citizen journalism was purely an illusion created by
technology that granted people tools, but not skills? I think so.
As a reader myself, I am very wary about the sources of the news I read. However, there are so many nonchalant netizens around that often spread rumours on the web, causing many others to believe those unverified claims. It is true that technology has granted people with convenient tools to update and inform internet users, but not the ethics and skills to be reliable news sources. No doubt, citizen journalists are quick to report on current issues. It is exactly the speed, that readers are supposed to be worried of. Have the citizen journalists verified the facts before they published that news instantaneously? They may have posted the information out of excitement. No authentication done. In my opinion, we can read materials released by citizen journalists but we cannot believe them 100%.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Loo Qiu Xi. In a world where we crave for speed, one should not neglect its accuracy. Similarly, fast speed does not mean lack of accuracy, and vice versa. Not necessarily the verity of the news is jeopardized if one publishes the news instantaneously, perhaps the journalist gets his facts right in a short period of time. Regardless of how fast or slow the news is, it is always important to check out the news first.
Deleteim agree with QC. nowadays, what we see or read doesn't mean it's true. we must have a variety source of news from different angle and different point of view in order to understand or to know the validity of the news.
ReplyDeleteFor me,citizen journalist bring the new era in journalism. I believe that the press company feel threatened by the rising in number of citizen journalist. Moreover, it may bring the good impacts towards our press industry as they should be more careful and creative to write the news.
ReplyDeleteBased on my understanding, the concept of citizen journalism is a public that played an active role in collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. This type of journalism has increase now and sometimes the news or information they disseminate can get faster than news or information from mainstream media. But, sometime I cannot believe them 100% because they don’t trained to be a real journalism and of course many things that can be questionable from that news or information.
ReplyDeleteNurhazali, i do agree with you. Citizen journalist bring new era in journalism. We needs citizen journalist so we can know the unbiased story. If we only depending a source of info from traditional journalism, we wont know nothing.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I read a lot of online news, I reject reading article from unknown sources. It because I don't see the relevant of those article with the truth of the news. I usually read the information from the reliable online media such as Sin Chew, Malaysian Insider and so on.
ReplyDeleteAs what I understand so far, citizen journalist is referring to the news in the blogs or unofficial website posted by some peoples. For example, Siakap Keli.com, Rotikaya.com and etc. This blog and website are actually faster in disseminate any controversial news for any topics such as entertainment and celebrities, politics and politicians and also human interest. Part of me, I would not entirely believe all these news but I will take it as recent topics that many Facebook users talk about. However, do we realize that we are actually act like the citizen journalists when we comment, share and even like the news? I will not say that become citizen journalist is bad but we must put our point of view based on knowledge that we have and not just beat around the bush. Become a citizen journalist is not a crime but be a smarter one.
ReplyDelete