Almost two centuries ago, a notable French writer, Alexis de Tocqueville offered a controversial description of the powers of the media in the elevation and sustenance of democracy.
Alexis’ perception as enshrined in his analysis was that the media wield so much powers that they do not only influence but have the capacity to control politics and its key players and connect them to the people. Journalists were made to think and behave as the conscience of the nation; such that whatever people read in the newspapers was regarded as the gospel truth because it was soaked and stewed in the acceptable ingredients of the profession.
It was the media that consolidated democracy in the United States. This was when the press could be meaningfully referred to as the Fourth Estate of the Realm—that is, the unofficial but an extremely powerful participant in democracy. Within this period, most of Nixon’s political appointees who masterminded the undemocratic act, were jailed. Others resigned in shame. Finally, the ugly incident caused Nixon to declare on June 27, 1974, “I will resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow.” And he did.
The next question is: is there anything wrong with citizen journalism — that is, the so-called journalism practiced by people who are unschooled in the profession, people whose practices are not regulated by ethics? We can only answer this question with another question. No doubt, citizen journalism or so called, has helped spread information or democratise the process of information dissemination, which is good for democracy. Such information might be false, fake, misleading, purposely mischievous with pre-determined negative implications, but hardly is any information perfectly useless.
Fast-forward to March 13, 1991 when a plumber called George Holliday videoed the beating of Rodney King by certain police officers. The video lasted nine minutes. With citizen journalism, the so-called reporter is also the publisher. He or she reports to nobody. There is no gatekeeping, there is no filtering process, there is no verification, there is no attempt to balance the story. They see it, they report it, they publish it, and life continues.
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