Unbiased Citizen Journalism
True Journalistic Values
One might argue that to be a journalist, one must retain a sense of complete objectivity, sans any opinion (Robinson and DeShano 973). This is not untrue of traditional journalism; an important role of journalists is to present a fair representation of events and figures in the news, which can be next to impossible for a biased personality. With this, critics could say that if citizen journalists only produce content that voices their own views, they can never truly fill the role of serious journalists.
However, this claim also is unfounded; citizen journalists are capable of offering more than just their own opinion. Citizens’ involvement in their local public affairs allows them to serve as informants or, as described in a study by the University of Kentucky, as potential “new information providers” (Nah and Chung, “Rating“ 81). Citizens can and should provide information on current events, as well as feedback on important or newsworthy issues.
This potentiality of citizens to act as information providers leads to some true journalistic roles of user-generated media, some of which have actually already been utilized. Two such cases are as follows: turmoil reporting in events like the Iranian Protests, as well as hyperlocal reporting on community blogs.
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