I still remember the day my niece came to me asking about journalism, as a mass comm student i was well aware of the ups and the downs of being a journalist and explained in detail to her about journalism. Did i managed to persuade not to go into journalism? No. Why? Because she's 14 and thinks that if you have a very good command in english and penchant for writing, journalism is for you. I will probably leave her with the benefit of doubt for now.
But really, if you look at it this way, we are living in a time where news is just about everywhere! Easily we can get news nowadays but the most important bit in a news is its credibility. A lot of news on the internet could be half truth but may not be the full picture therefore, credibility is a must for news. There are five elements that makes a news worthy and those five elements are proximity, human interest, time, prominence and oddity, these are what makes news worthy but seems to change nowadays isn't due to technology.
Dr Alex Bruns article 'News blogs and citizen jornalism: New Directions for e-journalism' suggest that times are changing for journalist due to social networking sites. But i beg to differ and i think we still need people to deliver us the "official" news. However, no doubt that citizen journalism is picking up fairly quickly by normal people.
Now remember i said i told my niece everything i knew about journalism? Journalism is the one job one has to to really be serious about. Everything pen down by a journalist can make or break a person reputation and this could spell disaster for any journalist. Therefore, it is their job to get solid evidence of what they are writing is true facts and not rumors picked up by the coffee shop. Plus, they have to be on the spot to gather true facts on the scene which means interviewing witnesses, officials etc. As for citizen journalist half the time, you are at a certain location coincidentally.
Also, here's an interesting bit, a lot people today are sort of abandoning conventional newspaper because according to them the papers are filled with news that covers up the government thus, a lot are moving into online news specifically those that runs online news portal on Malaysia. Because to them that is real news. But to me it is rhetorical, is hard to say who is being bias honestly, let's just i as a journalist wants to write a purely non bias article about anything (preferably political) but the editor edits and published the articles changing more then 50% of it, what can i do as a journalist? Am i to be blame for my editor's doing? Same goes for those online news portal such as Malaysia Today, how sure are we they are not being bias as well? However, i am certain about one fact and that is journalist still needs proof to back up what they write and usually they leave out their own opinions. This cannot be said of citizen journalist, while some may take the trouble to make their news credible, others are just pounding the "my opinion about this incident" button when writing the news. Usually this comes in the form of blogs, but blogs today seems to be a source of news to people and therefore, false news too can be troublesome. Indeed it is your personal blog, you can type whatever you want but... so long is able to be read by the public you best think twice before posting up anything.
Although all is not bad when it comes to citizen journalism, in fact i say citizen journalism gives rise to the voices of the unheard. For example many cases of viral videos posted on Facebook, they were taken by passerby or cctv but posted online and became viral! When that happens it becomes a sensation and people would want to know more about it prompting journalist to actually go and check out what is all the buzz about to report it. Remember the video of the poor two year ago girl who was ran over by 2 vans and no one bothered to helped her for a full 10mins? Exactly my point there, nobody knew about the news or the video until it went viral on Facebook prompting big news agency like BBC to even look in to the case. So all is not bad for citizen journalism again.
In my opinion i think both journalism and citizen journalism has their own role to play. But surely nothing can replace journalist we need them to provide us solid news and citizen journalist to keep fighting for those whose voices could not be heard. As much as we need to know what is going on around the world we also need to know what is going on around us.
Hey Ivan,
ReplyDeleteYou should encourage her to be a journalist as she has bright future too. besides that she be able to gain more knowledge and yes improve her command of English too. But i would say it is not necessary to have extremely good command of English to be a journalist. All u need is creativity and think outside of the box.
Yes i do agree in Malaysia its hard to distinguish who is being bias. But all the news that is posted or written pretty much is based on evidence.Journalist or citizen journalist do not simply write. all their stories are based from evidence and they strong prove to back themselves up.I would say not everything that is pen down by the journalist can break a persons reputation or spoil their image. Certain news and things are mend to correct and make a better future for the society i would say.
I totally agree with your point Ivan on the citizens are the only one which will give voice towards other unheard citizen voices. Which directly comes from the raw untainted footage video's which you have mentioned. A picture tells a thousand words, but a video tells more than just a thousand words.
ReplyDeleteGreat post there journalist.
I agree with your points, Ivan! I guess in the world we live in today, traditional journalism and citizen journalism have become such a part of our lives, it is difficult to seperate them or even remove their functions in our daily life.
ReplyDeleteTraditional journalism has given us the concrete, cold hard facts and you know it is always reliable, goes in accordance to the codes of ethics, is worded properly, suitable for the reading of the mass public. For citizen journalism however, it is the fun, interesting, hot news we obtain that probably isn't news worthy. It is a source of entertainment, of quick updates and channelled to the reader's interest and cycle. The two forms of journalism bring about the information ecology we have today, and provided us with knowledge of the world, anytime, anywhere.