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Yes

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Yes, absolutely!
It has become very obvious to most of us that the professional media are very biased, and often even biased in opposing directions at the same time!

It does not matter that a blogger or citizen journalist is not a professional, educated journalist. What is important is that it would be a step towards bringing our government back to the people, where it belongs and where it was intended to be. Our founding fathers made it clear that our citizens should be the force that keeps our government and our nation moving forward, yet, it seems with so many changes in population, distance, technology, and lack of education, our citizens have been farther and farther removed from our government and laws. This HAS to stop.

Now, things are starting to reverse: Initially, technology seemed to be a thing that removed us from our government and from information about our government. With large newspapers, radio, and then television, there became a need for professionalism. And the larger population also made it so easy for people to sit in their homes, completely unaware of what our government was doing, completely removed from any feeling of self-government, and often even completely lacking a sense of reality about government. More and more, we became a nation that preferred to sit back and allow things to happen to us, rather than the independent yet pulling together, nation we began as.

Now, technology has progressed to the point where it can help us to bridge the distance between government and the people, where the average person can easily keep up, can easily express opinions, can easily learn about how the government really works and what is happening in our country. And in the last few years, the internet has begun to really take shape as a useful tool to allow all people a say in what happens. We have far to go, to take back our government, it's true, but bloggers and citizen journalists are a good step back to a time when average citizens were called upon to serve by debating the issues - every issue, by serving in office, by writing, by defending ourselves, by being fully involved. We must take back our country's government, and a good way to start would be to get true, complete information about Congress from average people, because the Press has too many rules, obligations, too much money to be made, and too many people promoting their own point of view - all the while making us believe they are "just reporting the facts". Sadly, the mainstream media has many, many times been caught presenting biased, information which is either not factual or only part of the facts. The danger is that people still believe them to be an unbiased, full reporter of the facts. Citizen journalists may present their information as unbiased fact or as fact with commentary, or purely opinion. The difference is there is not the basic assumption of objectivity that the mainstream media enjoys - and abuses.

A citizen journalist can have have a wider viewpoint from the different hats they wear, assuming their full time job is not journalism. Let professional journalists do their jobs, which today seems far from journalism, and let citizen journalists do their jobs - being good citizens.

Learn more about this author, AJ Tyne.
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