One of the video segments examined the idea of citizen journalism. Citizen journalism has grown to new heights as online media has become more available and user friendly.
A perfect case of citizen journalism is Rocketboom. Rocketboom is a short amateur newscast that airs daily online. Rocketboom is downloaded or viewed around 400,000 to 500,000 times a day.
Rocketboom is generated in its entirety with one table, one camera, one light, and one computer. The creator of Rocketboom, Andrew Baron, said he has never studied journalism, but people identify what he does as journalism.
I think people should identify what he does as journalism. What is journalism after all? An exclusive club full of individuals with extra privileges allowing them to report? No.
Jeff Jarvis, founder of BuzzMachine.com and founder of Entertainment Weekly, put it this way.
“Journalists are not the only ones with a license to operate journalism. Anyone can perform an act of journalism. It is a big mistake to define journalism by the person who does it.”
The media is the watchdog. I believe the more people that participate in the watching the better off this country is.
Markos Moulistas, founder of the popular blog Daily Kos, said people want to be part of the media. They don’t want to sit and listen anymore. Moulistas believes people are too educated to be passive consumers.
This emerging trend of citizen journalism will have a huge impact in the world of Public Relations. PR professionals have a huge responsibility of maintaining relationships with the public’s a company has. One of these publics has always been the news media.
The implication of citizen journalism for PR professionals now means this:
You have lost a lot of power in how you can influence your image through the news media. You can no longer concentrate on how your company looks in front of a group of reporters at a press conference, but how your company looks every second of everyday.
Potentially, every person that comes into contact with any employee of your company has a blog or they have a smart phone capable of documenting anything and broadcasting what they have found to the world.
Transparency is increasingly becoming the most important mission for PR professionals operating in a world where everyone is a journalist and everything is documented.
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