THE IMPORTANCE OF CITIZEN JOURNALISM

The purpose of journalism is to provide citizens with honest information which they will use to make the best decisions about their lives, society, and their governments. If citizens are also able to help provide this kind of information, why not let them get involved?

The first person on the scene of a breaking newsworthy event in most cases, is an ordinary citizen. Citizen journalism has grown immensely over the past decade, mostly because of technological developments.

The September 11^th 2001 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States. Many believe this is where the rise of citizen journalism began, and the digital age. Before 9/11 social media didn’t exist, shooting and uploading a video was left up to the professionals. Not every person was walking around with a cell phone in their pocket, but a select few people did have access to camera phones and disposable cameras on that day.

These days many news organizations have platforms available to the public where they can upload their content. One of these platforms is CNN's iReport, which is a citizen journalism initiative that allows people from around the globe to contribute pictures and video of breaking news stories.

With an iPhone in every hand for nearly a decade now, anybody can be a journalist. But now publication is more instant than ever. Just last summer Diamond Reynolds livestreamed the aftermath of her boyfriend being shot by a police officer on Facebook.

This is a case of citizen journalism that made us view Reynolds situation from a perspective that we would have never seen through mainstream media. 

With blogging, Youtube and social media, citizen journalism is more popular than ever. But since most of these individuals are not getting paid, they have less of a commitment than mainstream media.