Media is a terrifying thing. People tend to believe it even if the information isn’t true. Welcome to journalismism, another inconvenient truth.

Media has always bandied ‘freedom of the press’ as its reason for existence, the argument being that it cannot perform its inherent duty if there is information control in content, flow, and frequency.

The abuse of this freedom has already burst the freedom bubble.

Officially, media has become wider in scope. Citizen journalism (CJ) or blogging/alternative media has joined mainstream media (MSM). The two branches have differences, as well as similarities.

Similarities

Both MSM and CJ make it their respective mission to send out the truth. All media will take (or fake) a credibility stance. Both can deliver breaking news, as well as incisive commentaries. Both can deliver factual stories, as well as bungle up a report. The freedom that protects MSM is the same freedom that protects CJ.

Both can have an audience that is either discerning or gullible.

Both can be taken as truth.

Differences

For some, the only difference between MSM and CJ is that one does not make you carry paper that ultimately makes your hands smell, while the other does not cause you eyestrain that will upgrade your reading glasses or give you wrinkles from too much squinting.

So, quits?

Not quite.

There has been too much debate on MSM vs. blogosphere, and most of these have conveniently avoided the obvious.

MSM is capable of wider ground, greater depth, broader scope, and record time. It has an entire organizational infrastructure and machinery through its researchers and field reporters who can immediately access the source. CJ has to depend on secondary research resources and has practically lesser means to go outside of personal knowledge and opinion, thereby giving the report a certain degree of subjectivity and unreliability.

MSM is more traceable when instances call for it to be accountable to the laws that govern publication and broadcast, such as libel, defamation, and invasion of privacy. This doesn’t mean that alternative media is immune from these criminal acts. It’s just that it will be more difficult, maybe even impossible, to trace the online culprit.

Mainstream media has mechanisms in place for self-policing. There are associations and unions to which mainstream media companies belong. These organizations are proof that the Fourth Estate regulates itself for purposes of discipline and quality. Most of these associations impose various sanctions such as fines and dismissals for erring journalists. Media groups have interactive websites where readers can forward complaints. There are also letters and complaints sections in newspapers.

Should there be complaints on an erroneous coverage or unfair treatment, MSM companies and organizations are compelled to issue, publish, or broadcast pertinent apologies and errata if they find themselves guilty – or persist on their material and viewpoint if they feel they are correct.

CJ has feedback mechanism for comments and reactions but is not mandated to address the feedback issues. If things get sticky, it can just brush them aside and use ‘freedom of expression’ or ‘freedom of the press’ as lines of defense – all hidden behind online anonymity.

Corrective and preventive actions occur more in MSM. MSM has a mandatory machinery of verification and fact-check. Almost all of CJ does not. The freedom that gives the opportunity to reveal the truth is not always predicated on the guarantee of delivering the truth.

Major mainstream media organizations have a reputation to protect that makes them avoid the hysterical, sensational, and tabloid.

Journalismism

Those who are still caught in the contradiction debate between MSM and CJ, still insist to etch a demarcation line, and defend alternative media as the more honest and credible of the two are those who want to hide behind the unbridled, albeit irresponsible at times, freedom of blogging.

If you espouse the thought that blogging can be done unfettered while enjoying the freedom that beasts enjoy in the Maasai Mara, then you’re only a blogger. It takes some sense of responsibility (not to mention discipline) to be a citizen journalist.

The key word in the title citizen journalist is still journalist.

There may not be an institutionalized set code of ethics in online journalism, but a self-respecting blogger will have an inherent sense of what’s sensible or not. The convenience of online anonymity that bloggers enjoy, making them less responsible, is nothing but cowardice.

Freedom of information flow isn’t the issue because both MSM and CJ enjoy freedom. The whole point is quality of reportage.

When the blogger works on quality of work, only then can we elevate citizen journalism to the level of journalism. Only then can CJ no longer need to assert equality with MSM.

The first rule is verifying the facts. And that’s the only thing that separates the men from the boys – in either media.

It does not matter who and what we are writing for. It does not matter whether we propagandize or proselytize, or merely inform. As long as we get the 5Ws and 1H right, what we are communicating is the truth.

The Audience or Readers

Let us bring something new to the debate, thereby touching on the more obvious.

The communication process isn’t complete without the component of the receiver of the message: the readers or audience. In any effort or enterprise to communicate information, the audience is the consistent variable (the oxymoron cannot be avoided).

The real and final responsibility rests on the receivers of information. The burden of proof lies with those who read and watch media.

The discerning audience who distinguishes plain rubbish is the one who does not believe everything he or she reads, takes the material with a grain of salt, and further verifies it. A keen and clever audience is the most effective police for the media - of all kinds.

Journalism (both MSM and CJ) is easily taken as truth. That is scary.