A Shift

"The Internet has encouraged a shift in who creates, distributes and ultimately owns the news."

Journalism is the profession of reporting or photographing or editing news stories for one of the media. Since web 2.0, there has been an increase in citizen journalism.

Now anyone can be a journalist.

You post about an incident that you've witnessed on your blog, you're a citizen journalist.

You post a picture about something else on online forums, you're a citizen journalist.

It doesn't help that most people are holding onto smart phones now. Just a snap or the picture and it's up somewhere - Facebook, Twitter, even Stomp.

With the internet, people are getting an increasing amount of first-hand information. We do not have to wait for the journalists to get to the scene and verify the facts; they are all up on the internet almost immediately.

Citizens can now own their own news.

But it comes to the point when we have to ask ourselves, when is enough, enough?

We take the case of PAP's youngest candidate Ms Tin Pei Ling. Since her public appearance, there has been numerous stories about her on the internet. Some netizens even went as far as retrieving her old photos from the net and uploading them, suggesting that the male in the photos may well be her ex-boyfriend.

Can this be considered journalism at all when there isn't any accuracy? After all, the three main elements of journalism are accuracy, brevity and clarity.

Further, who doesn't have a past? Even if it were true, does it really matter because she's not standing for the prize of a virtuous wife, but a political candidate.

So, when is enough, enough?

With the internet, it seems this question is getting more difficult.