VIDEO: The Rise of the Citizen Journalism the Death Knell of ‘Legacy Media’

I have been a citizen journalist for over 14 years. I began as a blogger, was recruited to be the editor of two websites and now publish a e-Magazine with fifty contributors, all of them citizen journalists.

Citizen journalism is on the rise as the legacy media is in decline.

The shootings that took place in Dallas, Texas is a perfect example of how ordinary citizens with a smart phone can take videos of an incident,which become viral and are used by the legacy media to tell their story.

Citizen journalists are everywhere and they are now the provider of information that the traditional news outlets won’t or can’t print or put on television or discuss on the radio.

James O’Keefe from Project Veritas is the perfect example of a citizen journalist who is now mainstream. His investigative citizen journalism has changed the nature of reporting the news.

In an email O’Keefe states:

Today is a dark day in American history. An unbelievable series of reactionary events have just happened. We’ll have to wrestle with the consequences of these events for a long time while deciding what sort of world we want to live in. There is a toxic culture of fear and we are witnessing unbelievable back-to-back violence. We are often driven by narratives, rather than facts, by pathetic people at the national level who lack leadership.

Times are now turning because of the way news content is being produced and the mediums in which it is being shared. One thing to draw from all this is that there might be a glimmer of real hope for our society.

The Facebook Live video of the shooting of Philando Castile in Minnesota and the live streaming of images of bullets ricocheting off building columns in Dallas were all caught on camera by ordinary citizens with cameras. We are witnessing new technologies which are transforming the way we perceive the reality around us. Journalism is changing more than ever now.

Of course, legacy media reacting to social media is nothing new. But what makes us pause is how devastatingly effective the video can be; video that was taken by a courageous woman in Minnesota (you can see my commentary about her below).

RELATED VIDEO: James O’Keefe: Woman Who Filmed Minnesota Shooting Is A ‘Citizen Journalist, Hero.’

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