ESTATE 4.5

Reading Axel Bruns’ ‘News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism’ validated my decision not to take anymore journalism subjects. Bruns’ reading (2009) discussed the changing roles of the journalist from ‘gatekeeper’ to ‘gatewatcher’ and how more and more media organisations are embracing the change while others are stubborn and choose to fight. It seems (from the reading) that the job of most journalists is no longer to hunt down stories and report the facts; it is now their job to hunt down sources relating to reports, compile them, and make them available to their target audience. If I was a journalist, I would be furious if that was my job role. I would want to be out there reporting the news; not collecting information from the lucky journalists who did.

I think citizen journalism is a good thing. It is great that we have broken away from the one-way communication channel of ‘old media’ and can access multiple sources and perspectives on any topic or area of interest. Steven Johnson’s article (2009) ‘How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live’ discusses how users can seek opinions and sources about topics using twitter. Users of Twitter act as ‘Gatewatchers’ by referring their followers to different topic related sources by tweeting links. I believe the pro-am journalist relationship can work well when embraced by both parties. Bruns (2009) quotes blogger-journalist J.D. Lasica: Instead of looking at blogging and traditional journalism as rivals for readers’ eyeballs, we should recognize that we’re entering an era in which they complement each other, intersect with each other, play off one another. The transparency of blogging has contributed to news organizations becoming a bit more accessible and interactive, although newsrooms still have a long, long way to go (2003b). I feel the same way as Lasica.

Citizen journalism could, however, be a major contributing factor to the opinion that journalism is the most useless university degree there is. Here are some links to sources arguing for and against just that.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/report-journalism-degrees-are-probably-just-as-useless-as-you-expected/

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/journalism-useless-college-degrees_b34212

http://www.businessinsider.com/degrees-are-useless-and-other-tips-for-aspiring-journalists-2011-6

http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/journalism-degree-is-not-useless_b4940 

References


Bruns, A. (2009) 'News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: New Directions for e-Journalism' [URL: http://produsage.org/files/News%20Blogs%20and%20Citizen%20Journalism.pdf]

Johnson, S. (2009). How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live. Time [URL: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html]

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