Citizen Journalism

I have been intrigued for a long time with the concept of Citizen Journalism.  What I find really interesting is that teenagers practice citizen journalism on a daily basis with social media.  They are recording history on a daily (actually second by second sometimes) basis in their Twitter feeds, InstaGram posts and SnapChats.  The video below discusses this new trend from a young reporter that believes in the changes that he sees in this type of journalism.

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin makes an interesting point about transparency and the importance of getting to the truth.  However, I believe he has a little too much faith in those that are practicing their rights as informed citizens to publish the news.  Teenagers, for example, rarely understand the impact of their posts on social media and even less often do they understand the laws and ethics of practicing good journalism.

With apps like Periscope, which allows people to use their smart phone to stream live video to the world, citizens will be taking on more and more of an informational and journalism role.  

I feel like this is enough of a reason for requiring all students in high school to take a civic responsibility class or at least to have a unit on civic responsibility in one of their high school classes. I actually think it is such a good idea that I created an entire unit for it, and I teach it to my sophomore English classes.   

Terri Hall
Davis High School
Kaysville, Utah