OPEN JOURNALISM : To remain open or to be limited and controlled

Open journalism has to do with everyone voicing their opinions or commenting on a certain topic and communities interacting against or uniting for a cause.

I believe that Open journalism can be useful because it allows people to debate and ideas are brought to the table especially if people want to find solutions for problems such as pollution.

It also allows journalists who write articles to interact with specialists or other intellectuals on the topic at hand.

It is a platform for everyone on the web to contribute, to share and link infomation together.

Open jounalism can create change

The problem with Open journalism is that it can lead to many arguements which is seen as unprofessional behaviour that could create personal vandettes.

People can easily get upset and start to use foul language , threaten the journalist or send hateful emails to the publication.

Media houses such as Media24 have decided to turn down their comment section. In an article,editor-in-chief at 24.com Andrew Trench spoke to Stephen Grootes and explained that it removes value of the overall reader experience.

Another site Popularscience.com decided to close their comment section as well in article with Suzanne LaBarre , they explained that as much as there are thought provoking commentors, a small minority of uneducated and disturbed commentors can ruin it for readers of a site.

In a Youtube video by The Guardian, they use the family favourite childhood story of the three little pigs to describe the power of Open Journalism. In the video , the pigs have committed the crime of killing the “the bad wolf” and many people across different walks of life started interacting and some even sympthising with the pigs. Until,someone had commented that he knew the wolf and that the wolf had asthma so it was impossible for him to blow the 2 houses down.

Evidence has also shown that even a healthy wolf couldn’t blow the houses down.The pigs then confessed to committing insurance fraud and they framed the wolf so that they could look innocent when their motive was that they were behind with payments.

This lead to a world wide panic as many were commenting that they had lost everything and were also behind with payments. This led to a new headline “Public outrage as mortgage defaults soar”. This also led to a march and people standing up for a cause.

As much as open journalism can be an asset to the industry, I believe that it should be limited to avoid conflict. for example , people starting arguements can be blocked off the site , given a fine etc. I don’t believe that it should complelety be removed because everyone should have the right to voice their opinion but with respect to the law or issue.