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Should bloggers and citizen journalists have an opportunity to get credentials so they can cover Congress the same way mainstream media journalists do?

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Yes		67%	327 votes	Total: 487 votes
No		33%	160 votes	Total: 487 votes

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No

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by Ana - I'm Learning

As it is the quality of journalism has gone down drastically over the years .. please do not drag it down further by getting all sundry bloggers and citizen journalists into the act!

Journalism is serious business and it requires lot of effort, knowledge, contacts to report news. It appears as if reporting and covering events is easy. One thinks that all it requires is good knowledge of English language. It is certainly not that simple. The job requires immense tenacity, good network of informers and a very tough attitude.

Bloggers are mostly amateur writers who write on various topics for which they have a passion. This is not their main job. Most of them have other professional involvement and after that they blog. However, there are a few dedicate and regular bloggers. But their numbers are few and let us not consider them.

The same applies for citizen journalists. Such people also have regular jobs and they pursue journalistic jobs as a hobby. Often they do one-off assignments mostly related to stuff around their neighbourhood or city. This helps them to earn additional bucks.

I am not against bloggers and citizen journalists covering up as media journalists. If there are serious folks willing to join the gang, they are more than welcome to do so. But there should proper screening of these guys to ensure only serious and knowledgeable ones are able to get credentials.

Besides, covering Congress is serious business. It may appear that this is easy but it is not. It requires tremendous tenacity and agility to keep up with what is happening there. Also, one will require a good network to able to get privy information. Bloggers and citizen journalists will definitely not have this network for it takes years of hard work to develop confidential circle of informants to feed them with information that is fresh and not that has already been published.

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