Anonymity: The Double Edged Sword

Anonymous said:

“Sometimes its is hard to tell whether all citizen journalists are telling the truth, but I most definitely am”

Citizen journalism has enjoyed massive growth over the past decade thanks to the use of blogging and the Internet. It has been described as the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. One characteristic that has been widely discussed and debated in media circles is the issue of anonymity and how the credibility of a source cannot be validated. This issue has presented a challenge for the citizen journalism community as opinions on the matter are varied and differed greatly.

One of citizen journalisms greatest hindrances is the posting of irresponsible, unprofessional, partial and inaccurate article by anonymous authors. There are no checks or balances in place to ensure that these media channels are not abused by users. These articles hinder the growth of the free voice that has been made possible by the Internet and tarnish citizen journalism on a whole. Citizens journalisms is also weakened by the credibility of the source, in order to counter act this anonymity, serious citizen journalist attempt to keep there actions as transparent as possible to build credibility within their networks.

On the other hand there is a degree of tolerance in the community for anonymity among certain groups of authors. These include people whose confidentiality is considered to be justifiable like political dissidents, corporate whistle blowers, victims and potential targets of hate crimes, and domestic violence victims. Articles of this nature tend to gain huge support due to their inside knowledge or exposure to certain events. A recent example of this is an anonymous American living in Beijing who posted articles pertaining to the riots in Tibet on his blog. This valuable news would have never been available if the author could not remain anonymous. Another example of how anonymity has been used to benefit citizen journalism is Army of Dude blog. This blog is written by an American soldier who fought in the war in Iraq. This insight into a global event could not have been achieved through traditional media channels or journalists.

I feel that although citizen journalism has it’s role to play in the freedom of information, it will never replace the authority of major media organisations. I feel that a healthy balance should be established between citizen journalists and media organisation to protect consumers of the media from deliberate acts of deception. Having said this I don’t really know if we can trust the big media organizations, sometimes even they get it horribly wrong.