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Running Head: CITIZEN JOURNALISM ESSAY

Citizen Journalism Essay

Bailey Shire

Ottawa University
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CITIZEN JOURNALISM ESSAY

Journalism is something that we see every day in our lives. We want to see the most

updated news and happenings in our world, and a big way of seeing that is through journalism

articles. These articles give us more details about specific events that occurred, but we don’t

always think about is that there is something such as citizen journalism. It is more of

journalism that is not released by a firm or company but just by citizens. Usually these kinds

of articles contradict things that have happened and have been incorrectly reported. I believe

that there is definitely a role for citizen journalism in our world, but we only need small

amounts of it.

Citizen journalism is a very peculiar type of journalism. It is not usually something

that comes from a firm, but it can, but it usually is about citizens and how they contribute to

different stories. In the Ted Talk we were asked to watch for this assignment, it talks about a

situation during a G20 Summit where a man was killed. The investigation was found by the

police that they did not act in any harmful way to the man, but this was not entirely true.

Through contacting witnesses from the event, they contradicted this statement. They came for

with what they knew and their stories to piece together a case. The cherry on top for this

citizen journalism piece was when a man had a video of the entire interaction. Once this video

was released, the officer who was sighted in the video was then put on trial two days later.

Now if you think about it, if this form of citizen journalism never happened, justice for a

wrongdoing would’ve never happened. Through the power of citizens being willing to come
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CITIZEN JOURNALISM ESSAY

forth with information to help make a case, it changed the narrative. The police tried to hush

this situation down to make it look like it wasn’t their fault.

The fact that the police tried to cover up this situation really shows the value of citizen

journalism. There are things that happen for the good when you bring in citizens to

journalism. They really do not have many obligations except for bringing the truth to light,

and that is what happened in the situation in the ted talk. I believe the power of citizen

journalism is truly underrated because citizens have more information on random things that

most people would believe. As humans we are wired to network with other people, which

causes us to learn things about different situations or events. I truly believe that because of

this we all as citizens have a responsibility to participate in citizen journalism if we are asked

to. We might be able to help with many situations that will change things for the better that

we would never know could happen if we did not help.

Don’t be afraid to speak up when you have information, ever, because you could help

someone you never thought you could.

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CITIZEN JOURNALISM ESSAY

References Cited

Lewis, P. (2011).  Crowdsourcing News. Ted Talk. Retrieved

from https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_lewis_crowdsourcing_the_news