Journalism Today

The internet has become a worldwide phenomenon which is becoming more popular and influential each day. The hot topic of the moment is how the internet has influenced journalism.

Today, ordinary citizens have the ability to get their opinions heard through the use of blogging or blogs. For those who still don't know what a blog is; it refers to a webpage which you create to post images, videos, music and most of all opinions. Websites such as this allow people to obtain a blog for free, meaning each person who creates a blog, in theory, is a journalist. 

However, we mustn't forget that some blogs are for personal and non-academic content. So another popular form of citizen journalism is websites such as www.newsvine.com where people can comment on news stories and then comment on other peoples posts. Both of these are forms of citizen journalism and have been very influential. Yet, there has been much controversy over citizen journalism. Professional journalists believe that ordinary people don't possess the skills to understand the complications of news reporting, due to their lack of training and knowledge of ethics to stand by.

On the other hand the positives to citizen journalism is endless. No longer do we have to take one sources point of view, which sometimes can be subject to bias. For example, Murdoch's Australian Newspaper is pro-Bush, therefore the news content is affect by this. With this in mind, blogs on things such as the Iraq War allow feedback and comments from people who are actually there. Eye witness accounts allowed us to understand what really was going on over there Mark Glaser (a blogger himself) believes that "..after 9/11, many ordinary citizens became on-the-spot witnesses to the attacks and their stories and images became a major part of the story." This also highlights how our media sometimes hide the truth from people, usually because of an ulterior motive. Citizen journalism therefore allows everything to be public. It also tests professional journalists as incorrect sources will be found and commented on immediately and published via posts online.

Citizen journalism removes the barrier of time and flourishes international knowledge between one another. The possibilities are endless and are leading some to believe that in the future professional journalists may no longer exist.