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Citizen Journalism
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| Yes | 41% | 168 votes | Total: 411 votes | |
| No | 59% | 243 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesInternet Reporting vs. MSM
During this last Presidential election, my awareness of voting fraud by rigged voting machines and a rigged press awakened my awareness of just how far down the road Americans perception of right and wrong has changed. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and also rejected to Madison's version of the Constitution of the United States. Jefferson's would not support replacing the Article of Confederation with the Constitution without set pre-conditions. These set pre-conditions, the first 10 Amendments posterity refers to as "The Bill of Rights".
The Bush war, this President has usurped almost all of the Bill of Rights, and invalidated seminal portions of the Constitutional text. The "free press" together with the Congress of the United States and the Supreme Court has abandoned there over view, watch dog role and have passively permitted this unprecedented Imperial power grab.
Ron Paul, a Republican Congressman, declared the Emperor has no clothes. The MSM imposed a news black aimed at silencing this rogue Republican. Ron Paul's message got out unto the Internet societies. Still blogs like "Little Green Footballs", with a neo-con political agenda and other similar minded blogs also sought to censor the Ron Paul Constitutional message.
Given a free Internet as opposed to a corporate controlled press, I personally trust information that comes from the free Internet. During the last Lebanese Israeli war, Little Green Footballs and other blogs proved that AP and other corporate presses had doctored war pictures. They caught the Arab propaganda and revealed biased corporate reporting. Based upon this evidence, if Americans want to return to their roots of a Constitutional Federal Government that respects States Rights; of a free banking society and a rejection of any European alliance system, then Americans have to start walking in the correct direction. And the first step towards this end, protecting the Free Internet Press.
Does the Internet Press have its flaws? No more than our society as a whole. Can abuses occur; can the Internet Press develop "Yellow Journalism"? The question itself gives a positive answer. Still the contrast unto the MSM, where 5 Corporations control all the information passed upon the Televisions and to a lesser degree Radio, this corporate control of information scares me. Jacksonian democracy appeals to me. That President threw out a Privately Controlled Central Bank. From what posterity records, President Wilson profoundly regretted his establishment of the Federal Reserve Private Banks control of the American dollar.
America has transformed from an independent free enterprise society unto a Soviet styled big government, huge bureaucracies, central planning society, where the huge corporate aristocracy has slowly transformed free America into debt enslaved serfs. That this transformation has occurred and the "free press" has remained silent, this greatly disturbs me as an American.
The free press issue does not exist separated from other fundamental issues. The Internet Press vs. MSM neither has legs to stand alone by themselves. This issue reflects a much larger self identity issue which concerns the stamp of American national character.
Learn more about this author, Moshe Kerr.
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No
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.
Learn more about this author, Saurabh Pal.
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