What is citizen journalism? Is it threatening professional journalism?

Citizen journalism is when non-professional ordinary people play an active role in collecting, reporting and analyzing news and information.
Something that we saw growing at a huge rate during the ‘Arab spring’ in the Middle East.
Where we even saw professional news networks relying on such type of journalism to create their reports.
Not to mention the many facebook pages, blogs and tweets people started following as a source of news.
Now if we want to compare it to professional journalism and if it has any threat on it we should take into consideration 2 opposite opinions.
Some people think that professional journalism (Newspapers, TV News stations and radio) because of its need for a huge amount of funding it’ll always be opinionated and would have redlines that the funders won’t allow to cross; moreover they will always follow some agenda no matter how professional the way it offers news.
These people love to rely on independent sources of news no matter how non-professional it seems.
It makes it more real for them and closer to everyday reality.
On the other hand you will find people who prefer professional news networks because they like to hear the opinions and analysis of professionals that have deeper and more sophisticated view of things because of their experience in the matters they discuss.

As answer before, it is a report of an event. Unfortunately most of it can't be really call "journalism" in the sense that it is most of the time it is a personal report of an event without the corroboration of facts, and can be biased.

People will communicate, citizen journalism had always existed, a regular person see something and goes on telling as much people as we can. But without proper training (educational or in-the-job learning) the event will be interpreted in base of personal views.

 

Public may read and may believe much of it, but political actors, decision makers, and people whom need or desire to be informed, will always need a reliable source of information, which in this case means professional journalist.

 

Although; journalism can be exerted by any individual with the necessary communication skills, in the ethics of telling the truth, without speculation, investigating the matter, documenting his/her findings, collecting data, interviewing witness, BUT above all of the "report of pure facts" and attaching them selves to the core values of journalism: Inform, Serve, Educate.

 

Let say there is a biology resarcher, if he desire, he can publish his findings, and that may also be a valid journal, specialized but very valid, or a rural teacher recording about education or poverty in contry side, maybe he can talk to the village doctor and find out levels of malnourishment among child in the community, he is doing reserch with the help of and expert and pouring facts, well he is doing journalism.