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Will citizen journalists be the next Woodward and Bernstein?
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Journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are famous for their reporting that exposed the corruption in the office of former President Richard Nixon. It began with the report in the Washington Post about the break-in at the Democratic National Committee and ended up being one of the biggest political stories in twentieth-century American politics.
Today, the likes of Woodward and Bernstein are being replaced by citizen journalists who have no professional training but know how to use the tools of modern technology. They use the Internet for research, fact checking or verifying and are becoming the bane of 21st century politicians. Information is spread across the Internet in seconds, going from blog to blog, without being censored by an editor who may not agree with their point of view.
At one time, there was a bias against using the term "global warming" if it did not agree with the newspaper's view and the term "climate change" was used instead. The citizen journalists took it out of the hands of publishers and used the words as they wished.
Once it was thought that mainstream media reporters and producers were the exclusive center of knowledge on a subject, but because of the Internet, the audience collectively may know more about it. Now the established media is inviting citizen journalists to post to their websites in the way of comments or have created blogs where information can be exchanged.
When Dan Gillmore wrote the first blog at a newspaper website when he was the technology columnist at the San Jose Mercury News, he opened the door for thousands of citizen journalists who have become investigative reporters and dispensers of information. Today, they have become Watchdogs, especially when it comes to politics and politicians.
No longer can corruption be hidden behind the closed doors of Congressional Ethics Committee hearing room or behind a smiling president in the Oval Office or in a carefully-worded press release or the words of a "spin doctor." Anyone with access to a computer need only type in a name or subject and the reporting from hundreds if not thousands of citizen journalist will lay bare information, pro and con, that was previously, before the advent of the Internet, hidden from view.
Viva the citizen journalists; they will keep democracy in alive in America.
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