Citizen journalism also known as ‘grassroots journalism’, is any type of news that been reported by ordinary citizen rather than a trained journalist. This journalist often describe as ‘public, participatory street journalist who plays a role in collecting, analyzing, reporting and disseminating news’.
Part of the reason of the existed of citizen journalism is because of the modern technology. The Web has made it easier for people to report news. This new technology making it easy for anyone to create a blog or website.
Citizen journalism is very common and large influence on the mainstream media. The citizen news blogs are brave to touch on subject that the mainstream media outlets afraid to talk about. The reason is there is a strictly regulated by the government in some countries. The urge of citizen to give a new perspective as the eyewitness reporters on the scene results the new dimension in journalism reports. Citizen news blog also an open, public blog that give an opportunity for public to keep track of news going on.
However, the citizen journalism also can’t avoid the controversies. Because most of the citizen journalists are not professional trained, there is some ethics that been violated. For example, plagiarism, standard of succinctly news and more. These caused the professional journalists less respect on the citizen journalism. They argue citizen journalism as a legitimate field. For media outlets, the source from citizen journalism are more arguable and very limited to be accept as a news source. Still, the standards for traditional journalism and citizen journalism are arguably not the same. In an effort to retain democracy, citizen journalists can fill the void.
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