Why Citizen Journalism Is Important

News organizations that report on stories in a fair, balanced and ethical manner are essential to the functionality of this nation. A citizen’s ability to make well-informed decisions hinges on a news organization’s ability to relay the most accurate information regarding the state of the nation, the changing condition of communities, and adjustments in the government. Journalism is no longer a one-sided conversation. Journalism is an interactive process that allows for readers and viewers to create a dialogue with journalists by utilizing mediums such as social networking sites and comment sections. Audiences have a say in what stories get reported and how news stories are presented to the masses. When news organizations fail to cover all

Twenty-first century reporters fill the airwaves with “news” pertaining to facets of life entirely opposite of awareness and activism. When news regarding anything aside from the lives of celebrities or current pop culture does make the headlines, the story seems presented in a watered-down, somehow censored, fashion; leaving the reader asking more questions than they received answered. As the major methods of mass media become increasingly consumer driven, the great majority are presented with less mentally stimulating material called “news”. As a result, Americans are often less informed, and thus less willing to become involved in, political, social, and economic issues, nation and worldwide. Through the application of relevant and straightforward journalism, like that practiced by Ida B. Wells, the people of this country may be armed with the knowledge needed to have an effect on the events unfolding today that will affect tomorrow.

Clay Shirky who wrote Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (1993) argues that society doesn’t need newspapers society needs journalism to save society. Shirky supports this argument by giving a historical background to the problems newspapers face and how the problems have developed over time and the solutions society has came up with. The blogger concludes that in order for journalism to go farther new models must be created in place of past molds. Shirky directs this blog toward the current and future generations in attempt to motivate new models and methods of journalism.

“Words of Fire,” by Anthony Collings, details the lives of different journalists in regards to free press and covering potentially dangerous stories. Anthony Collings is a former CNN reporter who shifted his focus from reporting to telling the story of journalists who have come under fire in a power struggle between government and free press. Collings puts free press into a spectrum, on one side there is the United States, where the press is largely free, and on the other side there are places like North Korea or China where press is largely restricted by the government. Collings does not focus on these extremes, but rather the places in the middle where there is an ongoing struggle between state power.

In journalism, an ethical dilemma is a complex issue or situation that often involves an emotional and psychological conflict between moral obligations and duties, in which to obey one would transgress the other. Within the media there are many stories that can be deemed an ethical dilemma; some more so than others. One of the most recent and prominent ethical dilemmas was the worldwide coverage surrounding the shooting of two American WBDJ journalists, Alison Parker and Adam Ward. Despite the fact that the shooter filmed the ordeal clearly showing the two slain journalists being shot, news outlets had picked it up and ran with the story, which ultimately went viral in minutes. This essay will analyse and thoroughly examine the reporting

The world is very sensitive as to what is able to be published to the media. Back before the 21st century, humans were even more conscious about what was to be published. People want to escape reality by not allowing morbid things to be printed in their newspapers. By doing this, humans tend to be oblivious as to what is going on in the world. In reality, photojournalism is the best way to go about bringing news to citizens. However, with photojournalism comes risks.

Journalists who cover war are also putting themselves in danger just because they want to cover some parts of war that don’t even really matter to the war as a whole. According to April Thorn from rcfp.org, 15 journalists died while trying to cover the Iraq war. All of them were from different parts of the world, like Jose Couso from Spain. He died from a U.S tank firing rounds into a hotel full of innocent people like the cameraman himself. Another from Germany, was killed when an Iraqi missile was fired into a group of 3rd division U.S infantry. The journalists who work on war are putting their lives at risk for seemingly no reason.

Nowadays journalists have the responsibility to report facts as accurately, objectively, and disinterestedly as is humanly possible. ‘’The, honest, self-disciplined, well-trained reporter seeks to be a propagandist for nothing but the truth’’ (Casey, 1944b).

I was 18 when we moved to the United States from Cameroon in 2010. I had always known I wanted to be in journalism, yet had little knowledge of how the media worked or what being a journalist even entailed. I had a passion for telling stories, and zero experience or hope that I would someday be able to do so in a way that affects everyday people, and effects positive change. As far as I knew, journalism was the ruling government’s tool for communicating what it deemed fit for public knowledge, and stifling any information that remotely threatened the political status quo. Only in the following years would I come to grasp the power of media and communication, in a journey that has led me to this very moment.

The duty of journalists is to tell the truth. Journalism means you go back to the actual facts, you look at the documents, you discover what the record is, and you report it that way. — Chomsky 2008

The media and the public have had a relationship that has existed for centuries. Through the media, people become aware of events and issues occurring around them. As a result, they make educated decisions. Therefore, the media serve as witnesses of the events happening within our societies and then report them to us. That said, could journalism have a significant political impact in our societies? It is through the media that governments and their citizens communicate. For instance, people communicate by protesting and voting, governments respond by amending the issues affecting the public. It is also through the media that potential political leaders gain recognition. Therefore, the answer is yes, because, journalism causes the spread

Watchdog journalism ideally involves independent scrutiny of the government and preventing abuses of power, with the goal of bringing issues such as abuses of power and corruption to the public eye. However, with the large turnkey costs involved with opening a media company (whether is be radio, tv or print) and the relatively low profit margin it is not the most realistic idea for news outlets. Due to the many large media outlets reducing the numbers of journalists dramatically, and an increased monopolization of the media market (particularly in Australia), it is likely that watchdog journalism will continue to decrease. While watchdog journalism is an important aspect of journalism, the idea that for profit news agencies will continue to do it in this economic climate is idealistic at best, due to the cost of this form of journalism and the time consuming nature of it. The complexity of the Australian media market is an issue, with a few major players making it extremely difficult for new companies to become established. It seems that the solution is for companies to run websites that will promote the idea of watchdog Journalism and can possibly influence major media companies to do the same. The essay will touch on these topics in relation to watchdog journalism: a background to watchdog journalism; issues with cost and time; monopolization of Australian media; and if an expectation of watchdog journalism is realistic and the evolution of watchdog journalism on the

The belief that journalism is in decline has triggered major alarms, because society needs an informational environment that is easily available to all citizens such as newspapers. There is a large body of journalist that suggests that if television has taken over from the press as our main source of news this may limit our capacity to learn about public affairs; newspapers are believed to be far more effective than television at conveying detailed information necessary to understand complex and detailed issues. There is also widespread concern that if journalism fails as a profession it will not be able to reach large sections of the community, particularly younger or less educated readers. This may reinforce a growing gap among citizens between the information that they receive.

To wholly have a grasp on how this new founded approach to journalism has changed alongside technology—as well as understanding the dangers such openness brings forth—one has to understand what exactly those changes are. Primarily, those that are writing for the sake of offering information have, whether willingly or not, fed into the usage of social media as it has become a centralized method of distribution that is relatively inescapable with the current times. As such those framing the news for the masses find an authentic avenue to stay in contact via social media that has benefits ranging from, “its extraordinary newsgathering potential; its potential as a new tool to engage the audience; and as a way of distributing our news” (Eltringham, 2012), all of which are deeply different from the presentation of reporting that occurred during earlier eras. Days of strongly structured instances of journalism that could not travel with such speed have been replaced as, “social media has trashed many of the foundations on

In this era, the popularity of citizen journalism has spread throughout all over the world. As a matter of fact, more and more people are starting to take benefit of content publishers. This can be seen in Television news, such as winter snow photos, traffic accidents or local sporting events. However, it leaves a question, what exactly is news anyway? What do you need to be a citizen journalist? What is its impact on today's fast-paced society? Basically, a lot of people think this is a great thing and it can be a good tool for promoting interaction between the media community and the community. There are pros and cons of citizen journalism, we need to face this issue critically and dialectically (Techopedia, 2017). On the one hand, citizen journalism has some benefits that professional journalism can not provide. Firstly, comparing with professional journalism, citizen journalism provides a wider range of news and fills the gaps in mainstream media. The main body of the dissemination of citizen journalism is ordinary citizens rather than professional journalists or professional media. People can through the Facebook, microblog,Twitter to publish news which happened around their life. Delicacy, beautiful scenery, sports events, entertainments, political commentary can be seen in Weibo, Twitter, Facebook and so on. Secondly, citizen journalism could stimulate the interest of audience. Most audiences enjoy reading