The birth of the Fourth Estate or the media was to exist as a democratic and independent body to serve as disseminators of information to the public without the influence of the State or the elite Nevertheless, the press, and journalists in particular as agents of this dissemination, do not merely exist as an outlet via which anything and everything gets across. It would be erroneous to surmise it as such. In actuality, journalists exist as sifters, exercising the power to decide what is disseminated to the public and what is not. But the advent of bloggers and citizen journalist over the past decade or so has caused a seismic shift in the media arena. The catastrophe that ultimately catapulted grassroots journalism, as this phenomenon is more glamorously known, were the events of September 11 2001.
The media survived solely on the print medium in its infancy. And it was during this era of the press that journalism flourished and evolved to a noble art. The press brazenly and vehemently went after wrong-doers and unscrupulous government officials or corrupt governments themselves. It is true that some resorted to personal conjectures and unfounded claims. However, the press was revered and feared as a potent tool of democracy. This status quo was not prevalent. The 20th century brought with it commercialism. Affluent families began taking ownership of the presses and the broadcast media. Media ownership became concentrated and the owner slowly slid their tentacles of control. No longer could the media function independently as it did before. It was around the same time that digital technology was spiralling in growth. The infant Internet provided the opportunity for ordinary citizens to helm the role of journalists or at least publishing materials online from the vicinity of their homes, something only the media had at their disposal. As the Internet caught the fire of progress, tools after tools blossomed online and now, suddenly, towards the end of the 20th century, the citizenry and the media were blessed with the opportunity to reach as many people as they desired with their news. The very first person who probably started the phenomenon we now call blogging was Dave Winer, a programmer for Macintosh. When journalists favoured Microsoft Windows and put Apple in a bad light, he retaliated. He sent out email newsletters to important people in the tech world and he realised, by the level of support he received, he has moved beyond the reach of the media. This catalysed Winer and his team to write an application which was the precursor to blogs. All that was needed to push blogs to a zenith was an event that would affect the whole world. September 11 2001 was just that and like wildfire the virtual world was flooded with personal accounts and experiences of the disaster. Grassroots journalism was never the same and it is still growing.
In chapter two, Gillmor takes on the point he had made prior, about digital technology catapulting grassroots journalism to unprecedented heights and further expounds the various facets of the technology. He claimed, and rightly so, that the Internet has given birth to an era unheard of in the history of the media, i.e. the citizenry are playing an integral and vital role in world of journalism. It is true that broadcast programmes allowed audiences to air their opinions but the Internet allows them to do it from the privacy and vicinity of their home. Gillmor called this the “Read/write Web”. He listed eight such developments and the first of them is mail lists and forums. Mail lists and forums avoids the cacophony of information from inundating net users and allows them to subscribe to specific areas of information from specific fields and body of knowledge. This way, the users are informed and educated faster and more efficiently without the hassle of sifting. Secondly, weblogs. As mentioned prior, blogs grant the commoner to own her or his own press, as it were. The Big Media could not anymore curtail or block the views of the citizenry, usually under the order from their proprietors and governments. But writing was not the only thing a blogger was afforded to do. As the years progressed and the world entered a new millennium, technology allowed web-users and bloggers to post videos, photos, and sound-clips onto their blogs. This revolutionised the art of news telling as well. The people around the world can now view important events as and when it occurs and likewise, they did not have to wait for the media to pick up their stories. With mobile-phones and digital cameras, they could capture and record these events and upload them almost instantly onto the Net. What these developments, including wikis, RSS, SMS and internet “broadcasting”, foretell is that the world is very rapidly becoming connected and boundaries have been rendered useless.
In the third chapter, Gillmor discussed the effect this new media is having on newsmakers. Succinctly put, the Big Media either shies away from certain controversies or decides simply to push them under the carpet. This practice barricades the flow of information to the citizens in entirety. Consequently, these newsmakers, especially the unscrupulous and corrupt types, have a way out of their wrong-doings, more above those done in public events. However, with blogs, mobile phones with cameras and computers in a mobile phone, this sort of news find their way immediately into the Internet and like wildfire they spread. Not only are they informing citizens such as themselves but sometimes they also provide scoops or leads for journalists who are bound by space and time. Citizens are anywhere and everywhere. Thus, anyone and everyone could provide leads for journalists from anywhere the moment something occurs through the aid of their mobile phones and the Internet. Similarly, the newsmakers (celebrities, politicians, government officials etc) could make use of the new technology and disseminate their views to the public. They don’t have to rely on the traditional media or even fear them. They could and should take advantage of the Internet. And Gillmor expanded on this thought in the fourth chapter wherein he opined that the newsmakers especially those from the corporate and business circle and celebrities are using the new media to their advantage. Gillmor also stated that public relations practitioners can use blogs and the other features in the Internet and offered some pointers. He stated that PR practitioners and their clients should listen to their audiences because they may be better informed about certain things. He advised them to observe chat rooms and forums. He also advised them to post everything a journalist requires on their websites such as videos, photos, sound clips and text, among other things. At the end of the day, the new media provides an unprecendeted way for newsmakers to communicate and receive response from their audience in a more efficient and fast way.
