Are citizen journalists more trustworthy than professional journalists?

No

10 of 15

by Saurabh Pal

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This is not an absolute statement meaning not all citizen journalists are more trustworthy than professional journalists. But let me also add that not all professional journalists are trustworthy. Just like other professions in the world today, standard of journalism has also eroded. The journalists have fallen prey to the lobbyists and vested interests. No longer do we trust everything that we read in the media. They were supposed to provide objective news in an unbiased manner but sadly this is no longer true. Most stories put out have an hidden agenda. One can find different versions of the same incident.

As a step towards stemming the rapid fall in journalistic values, the media came up with a novel idea of citizen journalists. The idea was to harness the immense power of individuals present at an incident site. They would have easy and inexpensive access to live news and media will also incur less cost to cover the item. The editor would work on the article from the citizen journalist and make it marketable with minimum effort. Together it was a win-win situation for both.

But slowly it is being realized that this is easier said than done. It is one thing to report an accident or robbery in an obscure and remote place and it is another thing to do a journalistic report on a situation. In most cases, journalists have to nurture their key information sources to be able receive breaking news. Such sources develop over a period of time and require mutual trust and respect. This is very difficult to develop for citizen journalists who do not have much at stake.

Besides, for citizen journalists it is mostly an individual effort. They do not have access to teams who can pool their resources together and reach out to stakeholders of a news item spanning nations or continents. In a global economy of today, it is very important for journalists to have access to resources in other countries who can work together on a news item and provide objective reporting.

Knowing the evils afflicting today's journalism immediate steps are required to address these issues. Efforts must be taken to ensure journalists provide objective reporting devoid of personal agenda and suggestions. Clearly when it comes to pulling together a complex piece of work, it is more difficult for a citizen journalist to deliver a trustworthy piece of news than professional journalists. So let us try to rid the evils afflicting professional journalism.

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