Pain of New media to journalism practice

New media is changing the face of media practice and journalism in general in the world today. The increasing impacts of new media in the dissemination of information have given room to an increase in both professional and amateur journalism.

Amateur journalism is that of people without professional journalism training using the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own. The accessibility of online media has also enhanced the interest for journalism among youth and many websites.

This type of journalism began to flourish enabled by the emerging internet and networking technologies like weblogs, chat rooms and wikis. In Citizen Journalism, the journalists are them that were audiences before in the old media.

Though it has flourished over the years, it has posed serious challenges to the journalism profession. Some of them are:

Objectivity

Citizen journalists may become activists within the communities they write about. Since these journalist don’t have the necessary training in journalism practice, they end up doing their own things which sometimes are contrary to the profession. They rarely quote their sources or fact-check their stories before publishing. Some of them rely on hearsay which is unethical in the journalism practice.

Quality

Quality of information is highly compromised for lack of know how professionally. Though they report in real time, accuracy is undermined. For instance, if there was a fire in the army barracks or state house, people near these places may report of the fire but may not have sufficient information as to what was the cause of the fire.

Publishing of Graphic images

In professional reporting, journalists are cautioned on publishing images of too much graphic content. This can be during a fire outbreak or an attack, they should not publish photos of mutilated bodies or them that have 3^rd degree burns. Unfortunately, amateur journalists bypass this fundamental ethic and publish them. This images are very disturbing and shocking and should be avoided.