I just read an article from David Hazinski, a professor at University of Georgia about the evils of Citizen Journalism in Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The title of the article reads ‘Unfettered ‘citizen journalism’ too risky‘

Actually I believe fettered journalism is too risky. We have seen embedded journalism carried out by so called professional journalists during Iraq war, when reporters signed contracts with the military that limited what they were allowed to report on. I find this kind of journalism controlled by government, military or corporate too risky.

It was bloggers, citizen journalists who brought the real picture of Iraq during war churning out real articles in their blogs and websites.

Traditional Media guy turned professor, Hazinski further says:

Supporters of ‘citizen journalism’ argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don’t provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn’t journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse. The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.

Yes, there have been some factual errors and discrepancies in news reported by citizen journalists and they were corrected within few minutes by other Citizen Journalists (CJs) via comments or feedback.
But what about Maria Bartiromo, Jayson Blair, Fake American hostage incident by Associated Press, Hassan Fattah who spoofed Abu Ghraib photos, or photoshoped images of Israel-Lebanon conflict by Adnan Hajj, Reuters)? I can go on with hundred more cases where professional journalists abused their positions, but my point here is that in both cases errors have been found, but in case of blogger or CJ, if he does something wrong he is corrected in no time, since his material is widely available on the internet and anyone has easy access to it.

So called professional journalists like Hazinski who have refused to embrace technology and interactivity for so many years are now in panic with near bottom circulation and ad spend figures coming their way.

The need of the hour is to bring different perspectives and viewpoints for a given story, and let readers see both sides of the coin. Today more and more mainstream media sites are fast embracing CJs stories with their main content, including CNN, MSNBC etc.