A challenge to journalism

Dubai: The news of a fire that broke out in a Sharjah factory on Tuesday was disseminated first through mobile phone images and Twitter messages by people who were at the scene, before any official news body reported it, a participant in a session on citizen journalism said yesterday.

Citizen journalism has begun to earn more recognition than expected in the past few years. The Pulitzer Prize has been extended to honour citizen journalists, and many universities across the world offer extensive courses in citizen journalism.

Does this mean that citizen journalism has finally ceased to be the underdog in news coverage and has reached the same level as traditional journalism?

Whether it is reporting natural disasters, sports news, daily gossip, or even controversial social and political scandals, more individuals are turning to blogs and forums for their daily news sources. While many media personnel seem to embrace it, others question its credibility. The benefits and pitfalls of citizen journalism were discussed in a session moderated by Sherif Amer, lead anchor of Al Hayat TV. Session speaker Anwar Al Hawari, Editor-in-Chief of Al Ahram Al Iktesadi, emphasised that journalism is a profession and shouldn't be trod on by amateurs. Ahmad Ashour, manager of the Al Jazeera Talk site, stressed the importance of citizen journalism.

Outlet for youth

He said it provides an outlet for the generation of young Arabs who are often oppressed. Ali Al Karni, Director of Al Jazeera Newspaper, pointed out that citizen journalism is the revolt of society against traditional journalism.

Mainstream media has also been forced to come to terms with what is known as mobile phone journalism or digital social media. Additionally, with the increasing number of blogs that are widely accessible, blogging has begun to engage different sectors of the society and different web portals.

Mohammad Al Kayali, a blogger from Syria, said the term ‘blogger' which has been synonymous with ‘writer' has changed considerably and the blogger has now become a source of reference with the elements of social media reflected in the mainstream news.