During the recent election in Iran, many journalists were detained and/or prevented from reporting on the events following the election. Instead, the world's media organizations reported on the conflicts using tweets, YouTube posts and other forms of new media posted by Iranian citizens in the midst of the action.
Until the advent of new media, respectable world news organizations would be wary of using such reports because they are unconfirmed. However, in this case, it could be argued justifiable because they didn't have immediate access to confirmed reports. The public deserves to know what is going on in Iran, and if journalists are prevented from reporting, then the news outlets have little choice but to use such accounts.
The news outlets seem to agree with such logic. In fact, many news organizations ran articles about the important role new media played in the election. So, the question is, does the benefit of these new ways of obtaining information override traditional journalistic ethics in certain situations?
For one, in the case of the Iranian elections, the world media was in general upfront about where the information was coming from. Second, similar reports from thousands of people covering the same events are unlikely to be fabricated. Third, as part of the media's audience myself, I would rather get information from these "citizen journalists" than be in the dark, assuming the media discloses where the information was obtained from.
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New media as it relates to ethics is essentially a double edged sword. While the general public is able to get its news almost in real time, many codes of journalism are sacrificed.
ReplyDeleteThere is an unsolved dilemma as to what remains the most important factors of reporting news. Should citizen journalists be held responsible to the same ideals professional journalists supposedly follow?
Or is there a way to handle citizen content differently from official sources? Perhaps we need a language to deal with these sources?
ReplyDeleteGood post. You had a grammar moment or two ("up front" not "upfront"), but the voice was good, the linking syntax was perfect and the topic was well-framed.
My only criticism is that you provoked more than you addressed. Which is fine, so long as you follow-up with more thoughts. Or call your readers to contribute.
Things to consider.
When I worked at Current TV, our citizen journalism pieces were always incredibly popular, in many ways because traditional media outlets play such a dominant role of the gatekeeper in many practices, you feel like an honest story is being presented to you from citizen journalists.
ReplyDeleteI remember how interesting it was to see how the cable networks, especially CNN, filled their time by just reading people's twitter updates about what was happeneing in Iran... Mostly their way to fill time, but because they knew just as much as we did about what was happening.
However with citizen journalists you get to this area where anybody can tell you the story, and because ethics may not be as important to them as it is for us, how does the public factually get the correct story. With more and more people getting stories from Perez Hilton, Matt Drudge or Arianna Huffington.. Has the line been blurred from bloggers/citzen journalists and traditional media outlets like The New York Times? It's a great topic!