Immigration: The Human Cost | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

The Knight Citizen News Network: started a site to help citizen Journalist get all the tools they need to tell their local stories.

The Onion has just launched a site for fake news video called the Onion News Network.

In The Know: Our Troops In Iraq




Is very funny while the Immigration the Human Cost can only be funny to extreme liberals who choose to ignore the problem of Illegal Immigration.


Immigration: The Human Cost

Citizen journalists on YouTube

Covering aftermath of Hurricane Katrina



You can watch citizen Journalism from all over the world and submit your own video threw iCommunity.TV





Its time for US media companies to look at the role of Citizen Journalism and how they should incorporated into their coverage.

Common sense about Cj's, RJ's, DJ's

What is a CJ?


what is a RJ?

What is a dj?

Is electronic Media a health concern?

Royality fee ruling threatens internet radio

Online broadcasters challenge price hike - Yahoo! News

On Monday broadcasters and online companies challenged a March 2 ruling that from a panel of copyright judges called the (U.S. copyright Royalty Board) to increase the amount of royalties that online music broadcasters would have to pay to record labels. The ruling would also require radio companies to track how many songs were listened to by exactly by how many individuals online.

NPR argued that the new rules would have a "Crippling effects" on public radio and it also objected to a $500 per-channel minimum fee. Clear Channel also disagreed with the ruling stating that the method of calculating fees was faulty.

Sound Exchange, an entity that collects royalties from digital music broadcasters and distributes rights naturally agreed with the ruling pointing out that ad revenues grew from $50 million in 2003 to $500 million last year.

This ruling is sure to kill several small time Radio Stations and college radio station who often play little tiny local bands before they get their break and our played on the corporate radio station again and again because the record company is paying he station to keep the beet bouncing around in our brains.

On March 21st the Copyright Royalty Board granted a rehearing hearing of their royalty rate decision of Internet radio. Arguments are to be submitted by April 2.

Milestones in Blogging

For those of you that still believe that bloggers should not be considered part of the "Press" because many of them are written by geeks from their parents basement this story may change your mind.

The California Legislature gave blogger Frank D. Russo a "Press" credential by the California Correspondents Association. Russo is the first blogger to be credentialed for his blog the California Progress Report.

Politics and Technology: California Legislature credentials first blogger as "press"

will this lead to more bloggers being credentialed and being treated like members of the "Press"
or is it just a sign of the blurring line between citizen Journalists and real Journalists -(Whatever that means anymore) no one knows.

I think that what it proves is that you do not have to be part of the corporate media to be recognized by the CCA as part of the "Press". Bloggers and other citizen journalists should have the opportunity to become credential members of the press if they have a proven background of providing accurate interesting news.

Their body of work of a journalists should matter more then what college they graduated from or if they worked for the mainstream media.
Since I have spend the last 2 years working for the school newspaper my body of work is next to worthless.


The blogosphere hit another milestone recently Blogs turn 10
people have been ranting and raving online for ten years on every subject imaginable. Now there are over 100 million blogs around the world this is now the hobby of computer geeks and their four-eyed, pencil pushing children who are spending more time in front of the Computer screen then the Tele.

However in China Blog is still nasty version off that evil thing we like to call "Free Speech"
Zhang Ming, Dean of political sciences at Renmin University of China lost his post for a blog post that broke the "hidden rules" of posting an article attacking the "Bureaucratization of Chinese colleges."
Zhang will remain a professor at the university bu the university said that his blog post was lies which "Victimized its faculty".

But Blogs are so last decade today's techy are wasting their time glued to the YouTube watching vlogs that range from funny version of the news like Rocketboom to a Vlog by US soldiers in Iraq. The vlog called "May God have Mercy on our souls" made by a Fort Lewis Stryker recon platoon known as "Deuce Four" called



A memorial to Spc. Jeremiah Schmunk



So keep Vlog, blogging and logging hour upon hour on Warcraft slowly the mainstream media is realizing the power of citizen journalism.

Horrible news broadcast horribly

This is way David Javerbaum the executive producer of "The Daily Show" describes TV news on the FRONTLINE: series News Wars Chapter 16


This chapter also asks the question what is news? has the definition been lowered or broadened?

Maybe its better to get your news through Rocketboom or other online news resources that is discussed in chapter 19.

Google becomes biggest media company

French outlaw "Citizen Journalism"

French gendarmes arrest a student on the Gare de Lyon rail tracks, as hundreds of demonstrating students blocked the rail tracks to protest against the new jobs contract in Paris, Thursday March 30, 2006.

On Wednesday a new French law took into effect making it a crime for anyone but "Professional Journalists" to record and distribute real-world scenes. The law is suppose to stop the practice of "happy slapping" where acts of violence are filmed and distributed on the Internet, however by going after anyone who is not a "professional Journalists" the French have made all citizen photo-Journalism a crime from a bystander filming an act of violence that they happened to witness to a film crew following the act of a terrorist so they can use it to spread fear.

The irony that this ruling comes exactly 16 years after George Holiday , an amateur videographer filmed Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King.
What do you think French police will do with a "citizen Journalist" if they catch French police beating someone on tape? Rodney king story may never have been covered if only Los Angeles police were allowed to arrest George Holiday for being at the right place at the right time to capture the video.

Punishing everyone is not going to stop the filming of violence or the actually violent acts from happening it will just become harder to tell who filmed what and why they were in the right place to film it. Yes it is horrific that terrorists and criminals film acts of violence and then upload them to the Internet to recruit new members and spread fear across the world wide web But how will cracking down on the people who film these events lower crime?

It won't. What it will do is give the French police the new power to decided who define who is a "Professional Journalist" and who is just a "Citizen Journalists". Once you let the government the power to decided who can cover certain events they will pick those publications that are friendly to them and chase everyone else out on some technicality.
What if something similar to the Paris riots of last March that occurred after the French government pasted laws that made it easier for companies to hire and fire young workers?
After the French police are done tracking down the rioters they can now go after any citizen journalists that took pictures in a futile attempt to control the message and save face if anyone accuse the police of mistreating the rioters.




Thanks to "Citizen Journalists" uploading these pictures to Flickr the world got see a closer view of the story that was beyond the control of the police and the mainstream media.
The line between "Citizen Journalism" and "Professional Journalism" should never be drawn by the government. They are bound to use it to limit access and neglect the freedom of the press.

Besides "Citizen Journalism" is growing by leaps and bounds and the French will have a hard time trying to track pictures posted on the Internet back to the person who actually took them. If they don't check a "Citizen Journalist" in the act of taking pictures or "Happy Slapping" they may never check them on the Internet where no one has to identify themselves to upload pictures and content. There already is a magazine in Europe called cafebabel.com, that runs stories by hundreds of volunteer contributors around Europe and translates them into seven different languages with a staff of just nine people. They also have 20 local teams to propose subjects recruit writers and organizing "cafe Debates" and public forum to discuss social issues.

Here is good definition of a "Citizen Journalism" that was written by Mark Glaser a blogger for PBS MediaShift program.