What’s in it for me?

As journalists, it is a sole duty to bring the truth-and only the truth-, to the people. Sometimes, Journalists don’t always know the answer, and that is completely fine. In some situations, it is okay to let citizens help through the use of technology and the internet. The video presented a few points that journalists should remember, but three things stuck to me.

First, As journalists, we need to accept that although it is our duty to provide the truth and facts, we can’t know everything. There is and always will be a limit to our abilities, and it’s okay. Citizen Journalism is a type of journalism provided by the citizens who were there to record and vouch for what happened. We can’t be everywhere simultaneously, but there are multitudes of people spread across that could help us.

Second, the internet may not always be on journalists' side as there are articles and other platforms that intentionally spread misinformation. Still, if we view it from a perspective that allows us to see an upper hand using the internet, we can use it to our advantage. The internet is something that can one issue across the globe in a matter of seconds. It becomes an upper hand at that point.

The third is that we can still be victims of hoaxes. We did study how to look for a factual article, but when it comes to the things we see on the internet, we can still be victims. Given that there is a lot of software that can easily edit original footage, the pieces of evidence become unreliable.

These are my takeaways from Paul Lewis. It’s a new knowledge learned and another realization. I always thought that we couldn’t trust footage from citizens because they could easily toy with footage or stories. This new information will be used with common sense and integrity in the near future.