MEMBERSHIP P START FROM DATED 1st January 2015
What is one “1 Million Active Citizen” and what’s the need of it?
The Law Society Pakistan has always worked for the betterment of society and rule of law. Considering the advantages of citizen journalism and growing trends of latest technologies in our society TLSP sensed a high need to build a proper channel of citizen journalism where this trend can be use for providing a platform to public. But considering the criticism over citizen journalism TLSP took an initiative towards the project of “1 million active citizen” where 1 million people will be trained for citizen journalism. These trainings will focus on skills needed for citizen journalism. Special focus will be on ethical guideline. The motto of 1 million active citizens is if you see something say something. Report any human rights violation without fear and favor. All news and information gather by citizen journalists will be review by committee before publishing on social media. Based on those clips/snaps/videos suits will file in respective courts
Criteria:
Following people are eligible for memberships and trainings:
- Pakistani citizens Age 18 years or aboveMinimum qualification matriculation
- No criminal record
- Memberships is based on
- Annual
- Lifetime
- Members will have a right to elect board members via vote.
- Initially for 3 months temporary committee will run.
What is Citizen Journalism? “
Citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information
”Citizen Journalism is a concept in which public plays the role of journalist in gathering news and information by utilizing latest technology tools and distributing it on internet. Citizen journalists are not trained and non-professionals, who collect, disseminate and analyze news on blogs, wikis and sharing websites using tablets, laptops, cell phones, digital cameras and other mobile and wireless technologies. Anyone can be a citizen journalist and capture/report news. The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as YouTube.
What tools are needed by Citizen Journalists?
Tablet or laptop
computer Digital camera that shoots stills and video Digital audio recorder
Software apps for editing text, audio, photos and video, and for creating visual data graphics
Blog, wiki, website or other content management system for texts, audio, photos, video and graphics
Social networks for staying connected
What skills are needed by citizen journalists?
- Critical thinking, proactive curiosity, noticing critical details, piecing facts together, understanding of behavior
- Writing with accuracy, clarity, relevance, brevity, readability, consistency
- Editing and revising for accuracy, clarity, relevance, brevity, readability, consistency
- An eye and ear for still and motion images, informative graphics, natural sounds, layout, design
- Visual storytelling, visualization of data, visual design and presentation
- Competency with new digital media and internet tools, social media, crowdsourcing and participation
What is good about citizen journalism?
The good thing about citizen journalism is latest media technologies, social networks, media-sharing websites and the increasing presence of smart phones everywhere open news reporting to people who sometimes can discover and report breaking news faster and less expensively than mainstream news organizations.It adds a wider berth and color as it collates information that would not have been placed into the public eye otherwise. This can be through a poll, blog or comment, this gives a story a multifaceted view rather than that of the journalist who wrote it.Citizen journalist cover the news that mainstream media misses. It gives a “multiplicity of voices”. Social media as a form of citizen journalism is seen as an aid for journalism by many despite its’ downfalls due to the way it breaks news through trending topics and collating all the news in one ideal location. Due to this, it has created a greater interest in news through online discussion and the spreading need to share information with others, as it is stated“Most people are still happy to rely on mainstream news organisations to sort fact from fiction and serve up a filtered view, but they are increasingly engaged by this information, particularly when recommended by friends or another trusted source”Social media is enabling a powerful form of citizen journalism with live coverage of events that allow bursts of information as it is happening.
Criticism:
Citizen journalism has been criticized by professional journalists because citizen journalists have not been oriented toward the standards and practices of professional journalism. They say reports from citizen journalists are subjective, amateurish, inaccurate and haphazard. They see citizen journalism's quality as, well, not professional and its coverage spotty. The issue with citizen journalism is the professionalism of it but as it depends on the person and believes it is an issue with professional journalists too. It is argued that for a good story a journalist needs the skills they could only acquire with training however that is not to say that an ordinary person is not capable of objectively telling us the story. For many, citizen journalism isn’t even an attempt at bettering the media, but simply aiding it to report to the mass media or just to get their opinion out on a public scale and as this is the case it makes the material a good read but also one that is looked at with a great skepticism as a big problem with it seems to be checking the facts. Like usually citizen journalists record an event and present it to the public, very often without checking all the facts related to the event.Many will look at citizen journalism as lacking the ethical and professional legitimacy of professional as it is stated “this legitimacy may be unknown with a blog or user-created site and,indeed, there have been cases where individuals have gamed the system, deliberately posting material they know not to be true”The thing about social media and Twitter is there is a flow of false be it the deaths of numerous celebrities, which can be so easily taken in by the mainstream media hoping to break the story first.
No comments:
Post a Comment