Supporters of "citizen journalism" argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don't provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn't journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse. The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.
The North Shore Journal responds:
There are dozens of other stories that I’ve covered, that the old media ignored or reported incorrectly. Other bloggers discovered and reported on Dan Rather’s creative use of forged documents, Reuters’ staging photos in Beirut, AP’s repeated bogus reporting of incidents in Iraq, and The New Republic’s utter failure to fact check a series of stories. Let’s not forget the murders and rapes in the New Orleans Superdome that never happened. There’s lots more, frauds and mistakes by journalists, journalists that graduated from institutions like the one Professor Hazinski teaches at. Oh, yeah, Professor, that whole gay general YouTube thing. CNN set that up, not citizen journalists.
Maybe I don’t want to be tarred with the term “journalist”. It makes me feel dirty, and not the nice dirty either.
And there's this:
Actually, citizen journalists usually have to spend some of our time fact-checking the lies coming from the so-called pros. Ever heard of fauxtography, Dr. Hazinski? Google it. You’ll be there a while.
We haven’t seen any fraud from the MSM, have we? Nah. No international wires hiring terrorist propagandists. No major network news broadcasts airing fake documents. Nah. That only happens on blogs. Right.
And this:
He’s just got his academic and journalistic panties in a wad because a much smaller group of people are willing to swallow whatever swill the journo-pits pump out without tasting it first.
Your reputation wasn’t murdered, dummy. It was a victim of suicide.
UPDATE: From the Democracy Project:
According to a poll in 14 countries conducted for the BBC World Service, although press freedom is highly valued,
People were also asked to rate how free the press and broadcasters were in their country to report the news truthfully and without undue bias….
In the United States, Britain and Germany, only around 29% of those interviewed thought their media did a good job in reporting news accurately.
The full survey results are here.
Looking into the details, there is a deep irony. The public in the very countries that most value press freedom hold the performance of their major media, whether in private or “public” hands, in the lowest regard.
This reflects favorably on the strong attachment to truth of Americans, the British and Germans, and most West Europeans. But, at the same time, reflects the extent to which skepticism and cynicism and outright disdain of the reliability of MSM, across the political spectrum, has permeated Western publics.
The narrow incestuous worldview of media elites, coupled with repeated evidenced instances of absurdly unprofessional conduct, is widely recognized, and as witnessed by the steady drain away of their audiences is an unsustainable business practice.
According to the poll, we in the developed West do not value social harmony and political stability as highly as in the less developed or more authoritarian countries surveyed.
This helps explain why we’re more developed, as we’re more willing to take chances to progress. It, also, helps explain why we’re less willing to endure the “social harmony” of a small, overwhelmingly liberal caste that controls our media and imposes its views, especially when alternative media increasingly expose the transparent biases and shortcomings of those views in keeping us reliably informed.
Of course the Drive-by-media will tell us that we're paranoid nuts who believe in an imaginary War on Christmas. There is literally no point at which people who are totally invested in their own righteousness will admit that they are wrong. Exhibit "A" is the cracked staff at the Virginian Pilot.
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