The surge of online media content proliferated by bloggers and citizen journalists has created a number of issues for those within the traditional newspaper industry, especially for professional journalists. Professional journalists are seeing the requirements, tools, strategies and knowledge base for the field they work in change. Journalism students are dealing with revamped and newly added coursework as schools try to sort out where the trends in journalism are headed professionally.
[...] When bloggers do attempt to verify their info, they move to a new level, that of a citizen journalist. Citizen journalists play an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information (Phillips, 2007). Citizen journalists mimic the actions of journalists with one exception. They are not required to follow the same ethical standards. While they collect valid news, analyze sources, and report their findings, citizen journalists often spin the story from their own viewpoint and write with sympathy for their own cause. [...]
[...] Citizen journalism is wonderful in this regard, however they need to take seriously the professional side of journalism, reporting and editing and verification” (Michel, 2009). A hard adherence to a standard code of ethics, the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics, is almost the only thing professional journalists have over citizen journalists these days (SPJ, 2009). How to keep journalism a professional career is a question for journalism schools and current practicing professional journalists. There is no denying that the arena of journalism has changed. [...]
[...] While those who headed of OffTheBus do not claim to be able to replace what The Times and the New York Post do, their project definitely deserves a close up look when considering how to transfer professional journalism to the online arena. For professional journalists, this means figuring out how to harness the power of citizen journalism and assimilate it into their own jobs. People are not only willing, but eager to be a part of the journalism watch on government and the corporate and financial world. [...]
[...] The 2008 biennial news consumption survey reports that the number of Americans who claim to read the newspaper daily has declined by while the number of Americans who say they get their news online at least three times a week has risen to 37% (The Pew Research Center, 2008). And they are not all reading only online newspapers, but news blogs, also. So what does this sudden rush of interest in amateur news mean? What about the traditional media hold on information and the traditional journalist's effort? [...]
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