Following the Fort Hood shootings, Paul Carr posted on his blog commentary on citizen journalism and its roll in the shootings titled After Fort Hood, another example of how 'citizen journalists' can't handle the truth.
I urge you read the article because he raises a challenging point and he makes an interesting social commentary on our generation and its relationship to social media.
Essentially he points out some of the shortcomings of what we've lauded as "citizen journalism." He isn't against the idea of citizen journalism, he just points out how a soldier named Tearah Moore was on base during the shootings and spent time tweeting information that turned out to be false instead of taking proper action.
So these are my two cents.
This situation means we as professionally trained journalists (truth gatherers if you will) have a job. the Fort Hood tweet situation highlights the issue of truth and accountability. The major criticism to citizen journalism is anyone can say anything--there is no standard or ethics. Well, the biggest criticism to professional journalism is lack of access.
Whaddya know! a perfectly symbiotic relationship! The best of citizen journalism is when we know the truth right away, but citizen journalist don't always know the truth. The best of professional journalism is our ability to give context, edit, and raise the standard of information through fact-checking. Therefore, we need each other. People will tweet and blog, no question. But what makes this exciting for professionally trained journalists is that we are challenged more than ever. Truth needs us more than ever. We need to call out tweet's and blogger's lies. We have the training to hold these citizen journalists accountable!
On to my next point before I fall asleep.
The idea that social media, photography, film, etc turned humans into heartless beings is ludicrous.
Case and Point: **disclaimer** This is meant to provoke thoughts rather than offend those who are or aren't Christians
The crucifixion.
The bible is arguably one of the first pieces of mass media. So think about it, more than a millennium before the first piece of "media technology" was developed we have people standing by and chronicling the brutal murder of who is essentially the most innocent being to ever walk the earth. Christian teachings dictate the brutality and crucifixion was necessary to wash man from the sins of his brutality and vice.
Think harder. If man was humane and loving enough to stop the crucifixion of an innocent man (presumably the mark of true humanity and love) back then, then would Christ needed to have been sacrificed in the first place?
Just a thought.
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