Citizen journalism and traditional media

Citizen journalism is the most real and raw form of journalism. Citizen journalism entails an average person being caught in a real world event. Their emersion is often caught by a camera or cell phone and the footage makes its way to news sources or to the internet. These stories are uncut and narrated on the fly with true emotion and responses of pure impulse. The pleasures of citizen journalism is the fact that it is so unscripted and impulsive. The capturing of a moment is through the eyes of someone caught up in that instance in time. Citizen journalism is the personal narrative of the journalist. It offers an event through their eyes. Unfortunately, citizen journalism is often too raw, too unedited, too real. Videos of violence and death are often very graphic and disturbing. Additionally, citizen journalists are not equipped with the best equipment. Footage is often shaky, blurry, or is lost as the person moves for their own safety. Citizen journalism, even with its downfalls, is still becoming one of the most important primary sources for the reporting of an event. After the shooting at the Civic Association in Binghamton, pictures and videos of Front Street and of police activity around the building flooded news sources and appeared live on television in order to report the story. Citizen journalists were the first to capture the event and in turn were the first to release footage to the media.

I dont believe that we will see a day without “traditional” media. That being said, if it were to happen it would be a great loss. Newspapers, live news reporting, and online media reports are of great importance to society. Without them we lose the immiediacy of important information. The media offers national reporting with instant updating and mass appeal. Although citizen journalists are making their way into the reporting structure of the media, they still lack the ability to mass report events with the speed of the media. A world without this would be an information dark age. We would be lost without a media system to follow for reporting and news.