My response to: "What Ethics Should Bloggers Have?" By Dan Gillmor

Howdy fellow bloggers,

What I understand from this article is that blogging is a powerful tool of freedom of expression that has inspired millions of ordinary people. Regular people take in and utilize information and consequently become energetic participants in a new kind of journalism - as referred to by US blog pioneer Dan Gillmor; “grassroots journalism… by the people, for the people.” (See weblog ‘We The Media’ By Dan Gillmor).

Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where mainstream media is censored or covered up. However, bloggers provide independent news at the risk of offending or jeopardizing the government and occasionally risking arrest. Plenty of bloggers have been persecuted or thrown in prison. A perfect example of this is blogger; Arash Sigarchi - who was sentenced to 14 years in jail for posting several messages online that criticised the Iranian regime. His story illustrates how some bloggers see what they do as a duty or obligation to their readers, not just a hobby.

However, in terms of guidelines and ethics - I feel that credibility is earned by being credible, not by following guidelines. The internet is available to everyone and it is up to the reader to determine who has a valid point or not. Standards or guidelines are meaningless - readers will determine who is credible or not on their own, ethical standards, not by a bunch of guidelines.

My understanding of Citizen Journalism:

Citizen Journalism, also known as "public" or "street journalism" quite simply refers to the concept of a local/common individual that takes on the role of a professional reporter in the sense that they are - reporting information. The types of information that can be posted on a blog vary from; a podcast editorial to a report about a community council meeting. A blog may incorporate the use of text, photographs and graphics, as well as audio and visual material.

The main idea of a Blog is to communicate information of some kind - via means of the internet.

Citizen Journalism can be divided into two different categories, just as professional journalism is. These two categories are known as soft and hard news. Hard news being events that are reported immediately; up-to-the-minute things, while soft news comprises of background information and human interest stories. An example of a hard news blog is ABC News' 'Political Punch' blog which discusses American political issues. On the other hand, an example of soft news and a very well known citizen journalist is Perez Hilton who talks about human interest issues, such as celebrity scandals.

Authors, Bowman and Willis claim that the intent of Citizen Journalism, "is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires" (Wikipedia.com).