Pinging for reply op-ed column published today.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/12/13/witted_1214.html
Citizen journalists: They don’t need to be regulated
By LEONARD WITT
Published on: 12/14/07
As the owner of the URL CitizenJournalism.org, I feel obligated to respond to David Hazinski’s opinion piece Thursday about citizen journalism, in which he wrote: “The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend” (”Unfettered ‘citizen journalism’ too risky, @issue).
He doesn’t think the formerly passive news media audience members are very trustworthy. He adds: “Journalism schools such as mine at the University of Georgia should add courses to certify citizen journalists in proper ethics and procedures, much as volunteer teachers, paramedics and sheriff’s auxiliaries are trained and certified.”
I agree with him that journalism schools should offer training for citizens interested in the news media. In fact, the Department of Communication at Kennesaw State University, in which I teach, is about to introduce a new concentration entitled Journalism and Citizen Media. Although we might offer a Citizen Media certificate, I am far more interested in helping future journalists understand the power of citizen media involvement. I am totally opposed to “monitoring and regulating this new trend.”
For example, mainstream media have been guilty of what Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte of the University of Texas calls “censorship by omission.” The voices of the poor, the disenfranchised and minority groups often go unheard. Now citizen participation is an opportunity to get the disenfranchised heard. Who is going to certify which of those voices is most trustworthy? Will it be the members of the journalism profession, who are 86 percent white and almost 100 percent middle class? I hope not.
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