Media Views

Along with millions of other ordinary citizens, they find themselves reading and writing blogs, making podcasts, and experimenting in video and other online media. These newly solo journalists, of whom I'm one, are for the first time meeting lots of fellow citizens who are doing journalism on the Internet. Also for the first time, lots of journalists are relating to people not as sources for their stories, but as fellow citizens with whom they can create journalism together. It's a time to renegotiate the relationship between journalist and citizen, and for both sides to learn a lot from each other. Citizen journalism workshops so far have stressed the skills that journalists can teach ordinary citizens, such as reporting and writing techniques. But citizens have much to teach professional journalists too, especially about ethics.