Citizen Journalism: An Opportunity for Amateurs

When I opened the citizen journal report, the first thing I saw was the tagline: giving citizen journalists a voice. It was simple, easily accessible, and plainly laid out. It says that all news is contributed by citizens, and it encourages new participants to contribute as well. If you click on Community, it lists the top journalists which is nice because they may have the most interesting or popular articles. Under the search bar, there was clearly visible link that said Create New Story at which point a very easy form appears where you can type your story and add videos and images. “Top Stories” were near the top of the page, followed “Recent News Stories.” There was also a place on the side that listed upcoming news stories.

I chose to look at one in particular titled Nazi Doctor Death ‘died in 1992.’ This article initially sounded interesting but I could immediately tell that it was written by an amateur. The title first of all, although it sounded interesting, is somewhat confusing and I think it could have been worded better. Also, the author’s tagline seems to be a sentence fragment, and not a complete sentence. I feel as if I did not get the full story from the article, and that the author could have researched and written more. In the title ‘died’ is in quotations, hinting that he may still be alive, but this is never actually cleared up. The author had sources and used quotes from valid contributors but it did not seem very well organized. There were also several grammar and spelling mistakes such as “emotionalise,” which was inside a quote said by someone else. The article is not wrapped up very nicely or conclusively, the author states two facts about Heim, the doctor in question, and then the article ends. I understand that this was written by a regular citizen like myself, however, I think if you are going to post a story, it should researched to its fullest extent. This is a story that I feel you would not regularly see on someplace like CNN so I enjoy that aspect of it, but it left me wanting to know more. I briefly looked at some other articles and many were interesting but were clearly immaturely written but I was glad to see the topics were widely ranged. I saw several mistakes with many of the articles that I looked on the website, which I suppose is to be expected.

There is a place for posting comments right underneath the article, and no type of account is required, but it does ask for your e-mail, which will be kept private. You are also able to preview your comment before posting it, which is a nice feature because it gives you more of chance to catch your own spelling mistakes. The articles could also be voted on and ranked which may be helpful for people trying to decide whether or not to read them. Participation levels did not actually appear to be very high, the most recent articles were from two weeks ago and then six weeks ago. There were quite a few articles but it did not appear that people were posting regularly. There were a surprising variety of topics of articles. A majority of them were political but I was glad to see many other issues also being addressed. The website also allows you to take a tour of it and it gives you a table of contents so you can pick what you would like to learn about. Overall, I think the website is very nicely laid out but I think that the authors should have more of a type of editing system. It is laid out in a way, that will not be confused trying to navigate it and there are categories for articles so it is easy to choose. I was happy to see eye-catching titles and various topics outside the realm of normal news, but as with most things, it could use some improvements. I think that citizen journalism is a wonderful opportunity for just about anyone to report on something that they may feel is important. It also allows a much more personal vantage point and many nontraditional stories with nontraditional views.