Week 8 Response

My questions for the week were:

1. How do we separate valid information from hearsay in our digital age?

2. Is the future about collaboration rather than competition between news sources?

3. How reliable is the citizen Journalist?

In our time the divide between traditional media formats and the public is rapidly closing. Today the average person can generate content, place it on the web, create discussion forums, and other social attributes. We also have to question just how reliable the average person can be.

The issue has been raised about whether the citizen journalist, individuals that often do not have the training or funds for producing news, can be considered infallible. We must keep in mind that news has existed for centuries without centralized news agencies. I would argue that the presence of independent news providers are a new method of interacting with one another as well as larger news organizations. We must never forget that in Burma and Iran, individuals on the ground posted content that was later displayed on network television. Also in Mexico, twitter users are now informing the public of dangerous areas frequented by drug traffickers. In all, the citizen journalist fills out the niche as a sort of secondary information source on the local level.