“A lot of people, myself included, are excited about blogging and stuff like that, citizen journalism, but I do remind people that no matter how excited we are, there's no substitute for professional writing, no substitute for professional editing, and no substitute for professional fact-checking.” - Craig Newmark

A phone, Internet connection, and being in the right place at the right time. With the abundance of social media and technology in our world today, the spread of information has become the fastest and most efficient it has ever been due to citizen journalists. Media users often opt to obtain news from them since their information is more consumable to the masses Because it is delivered faster and in a more understandable manner, the information that they put out often overshadow that of professional journalists these days. According to Bayuni (2022), the news and information being put out by bloggers, citizen journalists, and social media users are often even going viral. While we cannot deny that citizen journalists are vital in gathering news sources and evidence, I believe it is not guaranteed that the information they disseminate are factual and beneficial to our society. 

Unlike professional journalists who follow a certain framework and code of ethics, citizen journalists can freely put out information without fact-checking first. They have the ability to publish information publicly without any care for authentication and ethics (Örnebring, 2013). Without the presence of this framework, fact-checking, and their authority as professionals, I find that it is difficult for us to rely on the information that they share and to take it as it is. On top of this, I also believe that citizen journalism can be an avenue for spreading false or misleading information online. Bayuni (2022) states in their article that social media trolls are helping empower both disinformation and misinformation online. These trolls can pose as “citizen journalists” and publish false information. This, in turn, can even put the lives of media consumers at risk. 

Despite the lack of quality control, framework, and ethical consideration of citizen journalism, there are still some who believe that information from it is reliable and helpful. In the study conducted by Carr et al. (2014), they have found that media skeptics and political cynics trusted the credibility of citizen journalism more compared to mainstream journalism. However, as I see it, this is still not a good basis of the factual reliability of citizen journalism since these people are biased against professional journalists. Furthermore, the integrity of an information should not solely rely on its audience but also its source and fact-checking process. In this area, citizen journalists falter since they have little to no professional knowledge of journalism and fact-checking. This, in turn, can lead to the dissemination of biased and inaccurate information (Hood, 2011). Therefore, in my opinion, the most reliable and valuable information still comes from professional journalists, not citizen journalists. 

Although citizen journalists have become abundant in our society, we must not forget and neglect the professional journalists and their efforts to bring us factual and unbiased information. The way I see it, professional journalism is still more ethical and credible since it follows a certain framework and undergoes a fact-checking process. Nonetheless, I believe that no matter the source, it is our responsibility as media users to check if certain information is truthful, ethical, and trustworthy. At the end of the day, we must keep in mind that real journalists are those who share and use information with integrity and honesty.