1. Citizen Journalism
News Literacy

2. What is citizen journalism?
The collection and distribution/publication of information by the general public, especially via the Internet.

3. Examples Capturing an event on your cell phone camera
Writing a blog that analyzes news media coverage
Posting your own account of an event on Facebook
Contributing to online media accounts via sites like Reddit or Storify
Ask: have any of you ever done any of these things? If so, you might be a citizen journalist.

4. Compare & Contrast Professional journalists Citizen journalists
Have education or specific training in the practice of journalism
Are employed by a news agency who publishes their work
Are generally paid for their work
Citizen journalists
Have no specific training
Publish via their own means, usually on personal websites or via social media
Are generally not paid for their work
While some professional journalists learned on the job, one of the biggest differences between citizen journalists and professional journalists is that the latter have specific education or training in their job and they are usually employed by a news agency.

5. Other differences Codes of Ethics Motivations
Professional journalists usually abide by a code of ethics
Ethics help journalists remember the best practices of their profession, including to seek truth, minimize harm, act independently and be accountable (Society of Professional Journalists)
Citizen journalists don’t necessarily follow codes of ethics
Motivations
Professional journalists seek to provide information that is of high public value
They try to hold people accountable, and provide facts, evidence, and context
Citizen journalists can have varied motivations, some good and some bad
Ask: what might be some motivations citizen journalists have for publishing things? Fame? Notoriety? To exact revenge or make good on a grudge? To make someone else look good or bad? To cause drama? This are some of the things that make citizen journalism troublesome when compared to traditional journalism. But, citizen journalism isn’t always bad.

6. Judge says bloggers aren’t journalists
When a popular blogger was sued in for claiming a local lawyer was a thief and a liar, an Oregon judge ruled that she was not a journalist.
What did the judge say was the difference?
The case of blogger Crystal Cox

7. Journalists:
adhere to journalistic standards such as editing, fact-checking, etc.
create an independent product rather than assemble the writings and postings of others
contact ‘the other side’ to get both sides of the ruling

8. The result?
The judge ruled in favor of the lawyer, and ordered the blogger to pay $2.5 million in damages sustained to the lawyer’s professional reputation.
So, there are clearly still some standards and guidelines that are developing in regards to citizen journalism.

9. Good citizen journalism
Provides missing information, allows for quick updates, and enables local, on-the-spot reporting

10. Example
When the “Dark Knight” shooting occurred at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, citizens used the Reddit website to post as much information as they could find about what was happening.

11. Here’s a screenshot from the Reddit page of the Colorado movie shootings. You can see how the local user tried to update using information from multiple sources. They even tried to provide context and understanding during the timeline (see red arrow)

12. Citizens found this information very useful, even more so that the local news reports, as evidenced by this screenshot of some of the comments on the Reddit page. Users even self-policed the content, asking the poster to take down information that might inaccurately link a car in the parking lot to the shooting. This is an example of citizen journalism at its best.

13. Poor citizen journalism
Adds speculation without verification, dramatizes events, and doesn’t hold people accountable for their information.

14. Example
During the Boston Marathon bombings, users posted photos to Reddit in the hopes of helping police catch the bombers. Instead, citizen journalists launched a witch hunt for what turned out to be innocent bystanders.

15. LAST SLIDE