Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism, a term used to describe the act of regular people like you and me taking on the role of reporting information through blogs, online videos etc. The act of citizen journalism through the use of technology-especially through use of the web specifically-has the capacity to spread like wildfire and multiply rapdily. Glaser's article mentions that professional journalists express disdain for the term "citizen journalism" because to be a true journalist, there are ethics and guidelines for how to report news. I feel this is a silly concern. Quality journalists have no need to get bent out of shape because citizen journalism uses the word journalism to describe what they are doing. A term is not going to change the perception of good ethical accurate journalism. Most educated rationale people can tell the difference between an article in the New York Times and some blog written by the everyday Joe Shmo. It's just a term, and if it were me, I wouldn't give it a second thought.

Now, speaking of Joe Shmo, thanks to him, we have footage of the assination of JFK, the beating of Rodney King in Las Angeles, footage of the jets hitting the twin towers, and tsunami coverage. Joe Shmo contributes real life, "down in the trenches" so to speak-real life perspective from your everyday person of what's going on around us-something I think we all can appreciate.
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On the other hand, when CNN used information from a citizen journalist that happen to be inaccurate, it caused a rather large problem. CNN reported that Steve Jobs had been rushed to the hospital after suffering from a severe heart attack and as a result, Apple stock plummetted. Now this is rather unfortunate, in a make your stomach turn kind of way. Presenting inaccurate news can really have its consequences. This is a strange and unusual example, but I cant help mention it as it comes to mind...I remember my mom telling me that decades ago a radio station thought it would be funny to report that aliens had been seen and a couple of people actually committed suicide. This type of inaccurate information can be catastrophic.

It all comes down to using your common sense to distinguish between inaccurate and accurate information. Obviously taking the source into consideration is a major part of making this distinction. No matter what though, citizen journalisms benefits overpower its negative effects.