Are citizen journalists stealing work from freelance journalists? A question that was recently discussed in The London Freelance Branch of the British National Union of Journalists. The discussion apparently didn't really bring forth any real evidence of user-generated content (gotta love the phrase) costing jobs among journalists. But it appears fear still prevails among London freelancers.
This strikes me me as rather odd. Journalism is a craft and like any other craft it cannot be properly carried out by people who are not trained. Thus the buzz about citizen journalism mainly stems from extreme incidents - the London tube bombings for instance - where the immediacy of the eye witness account ousts any call for a strictly journalistic approach.
Journalists still have a major role to play as mediators of events and the importance of that role only increases as the number of sources in the shape of citizen journalists, bloggers and laymen commentators continue to grow.
Technorati: Citizen journalism |Journalism
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