What happens to our citizen journalists?

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by Autumn Smith

7-16-2012 2:00pm

Citizen journalism is not only an amazing experience, but also a necessary tool, especially in the political climate in which we are living. If you are like me, you have pretty much lost faith in the corporate-owned mainstream media (MSM) and cannot trust that they are objectively reporting the facts of a story, if they even choose to cover a story.  Frustrated by what has been occurring with the MSM and their lack of reporting (or bias reporting), I felt it necessary to cover newsworthy events myself. After all, many newsworthy issues that have not been reported or under-reported were occurring right in my own backyard.

Being able to tell the story from a citizen journalist’s perspective has been very exciting and also rewarding. It is exciting because you know that no matter how the MSM may spin a story, your documentation of the event will ultimately tell the truth in its entirety, rather than in selected sound clips or pictures that are taken out of context. It also allows others to see what you saw, hear what you heard, and be where you were, thus giving a front row seat for the world to see what is occurring.

Writing for DailyCloudt.com has been very gratifying. In one month’s time, I have written two articles published on Daily Cloudt, (here and here), networked with Naomi Wolf, given a review and overview of DailyCloudt site, and even had one of my articles and pictures cross-posted and embedded at The Guardian, an even larger platform. I have also been recognized and interviewed for my citizen journalism work by RT News, which allows the story to be told and heard on yet another platform and expand the audience in which it reaches.

A website such as DailyCloudt.com that allows citizen journalists to thrive and their reporting to be featured is absolutely amazing. I cannot accurately put into words how wonderful it really is to be offered a platform to report, one created by a well-known and respected woman such as Naomi Wolf. If we would like to remain informed on what is really going on in the world, we need more citizen journalists reporting on the serious, important issues and events that are taking place. The media has long been the considered the unwritten fourth branch of government and as such they have shown that they are not capable of doing their job. They have failed us as citizens and have lost our trust. Just as the Declaration of Independence states: "That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." I believe in a way, citizen journalism is a form of overthrowing the MSM and establishing a new form of media that is not dependent on corporate dollars or interests.            

I have said before that democracy is not a spectator sport. I have also found that journalism is not either.

:: photo credit, M.Kahyl Stevenson ::