Wgy citizen Journalism poses a threat to the Journalism Profession.

Natasha Phiri -210288104

Citizen Journalism is a new form of Journalism. It encourages basically anyone, an average citizen to be active participants in creating  and sharing news, newsworthy events and information. Citizen journalism develops gradually with technology . With ICT’s on the rise citizen journalism is emerging .

Your average individual who is not a qualified journalist can post up news or newsworthy events on youtube, twitter, facebook, my space you name it. The interactive nature of the internet and digital media and technology  allows your average citizen to be active participants  in the creation of news and information .  An example of this would be the giant protests in Egypt in 2011 when the dictator  Hosni Mubarak was forced to quit as president of the nation. Egyptian citizens  decided to post   up what was really happening in Egypt  making the world at large aware of what was really happening in that nation at that particular time , because local Egyptian broadcasters which are government controlled were not broadcasting this .

As a young journalist  , citizen journalism poses a threat to my profession because I have to go to school and study and get my qualification , mean whilst normal citizens can share news and information , and they are automatically regarded as “citizen journalists” . Professional journalists are objecting to this term citizen journalism because it implies that professional journalists are not operating as citizens.

 Citizen Journalism also means that amateurs and people who are completely clueless about journalism can now write, record and cover stories. Is it honestly fair to categorize such people and call them journalists? Whilst we went to varsity, and were taught about ethics and how to report on news and cover stories.

Citizen journalism also gives the journalism profession and journalists as a whole a bad name . Some people may mislead the public by posting something up and you find that the information is incorrect or false or some facts were not verified . The public will assume that the person that posted up such information is a journalist and that results in us journalists losing our credibility. It also promotes some form of lazy journalism.

Because citizen journalists post their work on social networking sites , this means that the stories were posted outside the newsroom , which means that no one can edit their work or check the spelling and grammar. Another danger is that were do they get their information from? Is it from hearsay information? A source? A written document? And if so how do they verify their information and how do they know that it is true?

Mind you that there are some people who believe everything they read and think that everything from the internet is actually true. This can mislead a lot of people and in the end we get a bad name and we are deemed as not trustworthy. Citizen journalists may also be biased in writing their stories and not objective and in doing such they can influence the reader.

I strongly believe that citizen journalism is a threat to our profession and something needs to be done about it .It jeopardizes our profession , our name and our credibility.