The Joke that is Citizen Journalism

Or rather, citizen reporting, since as of late everything since to involves citizens reporting on each other. Just yesterday I was taking the train home, when a young Malay man opposite me decided to squat down and sit on the floor. To my quite abject horror, my first reaction was to whip out my camera and send the picture of this unfortunate person to the Straits Times for people to “tut tut” over under the accusing headline of “WHERE ARE OUR COURTEOUS COMMUTERS.”

I am horrified, because I have become victim to an especially damning sort of social conditioning. Stand there in the moving train, I could have done several things. First, the option was always there to ignore him. Second, I could tell him to stand up. And third, of course, I could send his picture to STOMP, providing our news-starved newspapers with a tidbit to publish. The choices beget the question: if I could not bother to tell him to stop, was he really bothering me in the first place?

With all the spin peeled back, citizen journalism as heralded by the likes of STOMP is nothing more that a perpetuation of a school yard mentality to “tell the teacher.” Think of all the major stories “broke” by citizen blogs. A large amount of them involve people telling on other people. The current H1N1 pendamic is no different. Internet users hide behind their sactuaries of anominity and freely criticise potential carriers as being irresponsible. The lable of irresponsibility carries as much irony as does the term citizen journalism.