Here’s a rundown on citizen journalism by Steve Outing with the Poynter Institute.
I’m tired. It’s late. So this will be short.
But as I was driving from the beach to my hotel this evening I started to think about the influence that I’m certain citizen journalism will have on traditional news outlets and practices.
The effect I think will be this: Citizen journalism will make professional journalists better. Citizen journalists tend to disclose biases, points-of-view, etc. This makes the reporting more transparent, and more believable. I think eventually trad media will be gently forced to do the same or face losing the trust of viewers/readers…essentially losing credibility.
This is true in corporations (where I encourage executives to empower their employees to blog freely…though intelligently…not disclosing company secrets/sensitive information; as well as with news in general. Citizen journalism (or employee journalism as I call it in a corporate setting) will change the quality of information—for the better.
