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213/9/BA-JNL/012
Journalism is the gathering of facts,
information, etc on events, issues and trends and disseminating it to a wide
audience.
A person who has been trained to do this
job is a professional journalist.
Citizen journalism is when private
individuals essentially do what professional journalists do, that is reporting
information, with the use of modern communication technologies.
Many questions have been asked over the
years as to if the work of a citizen journalist serves as a threat to that of
the professional and I for one thinks this is so because of the reasons given
below.
First of all, one may argue that, the
constitution allows for freedom of speech and so no individual should be
restricted to talk, also, many stories have been brought to light through
citizen journalists when the professionals were nowhere to be found to cover
it. True, however, does their work meet the standard of that of the
professionals who make sure that they edit their work in order to make it
acceptable to the public? No, they do no such thing, since it is done by just
an individual.
Moreover, citizen journalists normally
post news in blogs which are free, and so sooner or later, the professional who
the job serves as his or her source of livelihood will be put out of work since
no one will buy newspapers or even watch or listen to news on radio or
television.
Furthermore, because they are not
ethical, they make certain mistakes such as not been able to deal with
emotional or sensitive issues such as accidents or death with the general
public. By so doing, destroying the industry that the professionals have worked
so hard to build.
Lastly, because they are most of the time
in a hurry to report news, they hardly do research into certain issues before
reporting it. When this happens, they sometimes make mistakes in their
reportage and in the process, misinforming their audience.
All these actions and inactions of
citizen journalists serve as a threat to the work of professional journalists.