Citizen Journalism and The Future Of Journalism, Kate

There is an over abundance of discussion on "new media": mainly debates on the effects it has had and continues to have on the new wave of information sharing, but never do these discussions seem to end with much of an answer: only reaffirmation of the fact that we do not know what will come next. The market of the future is just that, unpredictable, unstable, and next to impossible to navigate with certainty. What is obvious is that the internet, and everything that comes with it, has rapidly changed the way people communicate, and this change is permanent. As long as there is internet, people will look to it to find current news, socially interact with peers and find out what is happening in their communities and around the world. Many members of the established and credited news sources are upset with the number of people who are deemed incredible and even possibly bias that are now able to gain a following and become a major news source, even without basic reporting credentials or training. But is this new wave of citizen journalism bad? Or could it be the serious deterioration of newspaper revenues and the instability of the careers of media moguls that is causing all the upset?

At the FTC's two day workshop discussion on the future of journalism, Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post, noted that the contributions of citizen journalists who are unpaid but work with technologies to supply news to the public are "constantly mocked and derided by the critics of new media" because they don't understand that this social change has caused those who may have been passive observers into becoming active participants in their world. Those who blog or find other ways to share news information online have been given a platform from which to speak and seized the opportunity to transform in a way which Huffington describes as "couch potato to self-expression". A comment not likely to bode well with many of the FTC members in the workshop, members who are noted as experts and high profile executives in the journalism world, many of whom are vying for ways to hold onto the hierarchical control and the current structure of journalism which has been built up over time, and is now quickly deteriorating due to the multifaceted opportunity's available online for citizen's free expression and access to audience via the web: herein lies the issues of "new media".

One of the first bloggers to hit notoriety on the level of a house hold name was Perez Hilton, who started his celebrity gossip blog in 2004. Many debate the credibility, personal bias and sensationalism Hilton puts into the articles and the photograph doodles on his blog, but with comparison to relative news sources such as US Weekly and Star Magazine, it is senseless to say that Hilton has not being doing his job correctly. Hilton has the online blog advantage of to the minute updates, and the fashion in which he supplies news to his followers has been an undeniable success. But Perez Hilton is not a journalist. Or is he?

Historically, journalism is a fifth estate created out of necessity for the everyman. Working to create a check and balance system for the people in regards to government and business, as well as providing an information flow for the public to be informed on local and global world events. The new wave of citizen journalists and bloggers have been attacked for lacking in credibility and being jaded with bias in comparison to those who run newspapers which are held to a standard of credibility and have a reputation to uphold. Yet, for years now television news channels have been asking those who witness events to film them, take pictures, and send them in for the station to use on their shows. News sources of all kinds have been seeking out eye witnesses and subject 'experts' to take note from and then compile their stories from. Now the power is in the hand of those eye witnesses and experts and those embodied with eager curiosity to seek out information and to compile their own drafts of what is happening in the world and let others know. If you hear off a riot in Iran you no longer need to simply see what CBC has to tell you about it, because the people in Iran have posted blogs, pictures, videos and tweets about what they are in the midst of, long before CBC has gotten their facts straight.

I think the biggest change the internet has brought about towards creating the future of journalism is that the gatekeepers, those who control the flow of news to the people, have changed. The people of the world are creating and sharing the news as it happens. The public is accessing this information and can openly and instantly give their opinion on the matter. The gatekeepers no longer need to sit in nice offices and deliberate over which story should be deemed most newsworthy or grapple with alliterations to make the most eye-catching top-selling headlines. The gatekeepers of the future need to be nurtured and fostered in the minds of the individual now more than ever. The public needs a solid basis of understanding in what credibility means, what research means, and the intellectual capability to see differences between truths and falsities. So when you hear the next discussion about "new media", which likely will be centered on how newspapers can (not) make money off the internet, filter what you have heard about the evils of citizen journalism and give the world your opinion on it.

Image Source: http://mvlturner.wordpress.com/2009/08/