Citizen Journalism or Inferior Journalism?

Nowadays most cellphones allow images and videos to be uploaded at a shockingly fast pace. Just because someone can afford to purchase these technologies and can correspondingly use them does not make them a ‘journalist.’ It makes them a reflection of their generation. The same amount of respect should not be afforded to these people as to those whose make their lives about commitment to reporting on essential issues.

Picture yourself visiting the Globe and Mail website and reading a recent article on the situation in Kenya or the latest hockey scores or whatever meets your particular interests. You can depend on the credibility of the writers. You know that whoever wrote the article has likely had years of experience in contacting sources, interviewing, and researching. In other words you can read this article without having to doubt the writer.

Now imagine typing “Kenya blogs” or “sports fans” into google and finding writers on these subjects that way. You may be able to find poor quality footage uploaded from someone’s camera phone or the random musings of some know-it-all high school student. Whatever you find, you can be assured it will not uphold the standards that are strongly enforced by media houses.

Why then anyone would choose citizen journalism over real, well-researched articles is a mystery to me. I think that perhaps the answer is that no one really chooses it. I believe people may consult citizen journalism when they are particularly interested in a topic but overall there is still a general dependency on reliable media. People may visit youtube to watch footage of some horrific storm but they still want to hear firsthand about the storm from some reporter braving the winds, reporting from the scene itself. Nothing could ever replace that.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2461174,00.html

http://www.citmedia.org/