The idea behind citizen
journalism, also known as public or participatory journalism is that
people without professional journalism training can use the tools of
modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to
create, augment, or fact-check media on their own. A person's
participation in citizen journalism may include writting about a local
event on a personal blog or online forum, using blogs to point out
factual errors or biases of a news organization, posting a digital
photo taken of a newsworthy event you witnessed, or even videotaping an
even and placing it on YouTube. While all these acts may only
involve the simple action of observation at the scene of an important
event, which citizens have been doing throughout history, it is today's
technologies that allow everyone from the local baker, to the
university college student, and stay-at-home mom to make and distribute
news to a world-wide audience.