Are Citizen Jounalists Bad?

Anyone, including you, me, your neighbors and friends can be a citizen journalist. A citizen journalist collects and disseminates information about anything ranging from events to people, trends, issues and politics. With the development of technology, citizen journalists are increasing in its popularity through the internet via blogs. It is so easy for anyone to take a picture on the streets and upload it on the internet and social net working websites for dissemination.

Many of them now report from the scene via wireless internet or 3G. Journalists feels that this is an issue as they are afraid that these citizen journalists do not know how to apply objectivity in their reports and they may not know how to report based on the code of ethics of journalism as required for professional news reporting.

There is nothing wrong with citizen journalism; in fact, it has been widely encouraged for people to report and share information. How do we know what is ethical to be published and shared with the world?

However, there is nothing wrong with citizen journalism. In fact it is encouraged as many people will know what is happening all around. But how do they know what is ethical reporting? Differentiating between what should be reported and what should be not?

Here’s some basic reporting ethics from SaveTheMedia.

Try not to report anything that would hurt another person or cost someone their future, career or relationship. If you really have to report something you saw, at least get both sides of the story before writing about anyone that could put them in a bad light. This also means that you would give a source where there are sufficient chances to respond to your report.

An example of this would be the Tampines Junior College students who were reported to have been “heavy petting at the back of bus number 12″. The netizen had snapped a picture and posted it on a popular local forum. He/she had not bothered to get find out what was going on and did not think of the consequences before posting it online. His / her actions had resulted in the both Junior College students getting them fired from their student councillor titles for something that they might not have done in the first place. This incident was reported on Asia One.

Don’t publish what you will not want to see published on the newspapers. This would mean no publishing of inappropriate use of language, pictures or videos. Simply put, do not publish anything that would cause discomfort to those whom are reading or viewing it.

Be honest when you are writing the story. Admit your mistake if you have said something wrong. If you misunderstood something, acknowledge it. If you inadvertently wrong someone, apologize and try to fix it.


Gina Chen, 19 October 2009, viewed 13 June 2010

AsiaOne, 21 Jan 2009, viewed 13 June 2010