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“All this will be useless if we do not practice responsible journalism. Like Prof Berger teaches us, true journalism is based on truthfulness, fairness, impartiality and ethics,” Rantao said.

The debate around citizen journalism – a fruit of the rise of the machine – continues to rage at the 12th Highway Africa, even long after the plenary sessions have closed, with critics of citizen journalism saying that some content of this new form of media is an untested information, has a load of hidden agendas and lacks an ethical approach and independence.

But love it or hate it, said the other camp, citizen journalism is here to stay and constitutes a challenge to traditional media, especially newspapers and magazines.

But Rantao argues that there would be serious repercussions if citizen journalists were to become the new masters of print media’s newsrooms.

“As we encourage our readers to use these platforms, we have to be very careful in the manner we manage the information they generate. If we were to give these people access to produce newspapers, there is a danger that we might see untruths being published every time in the newspapers. Perhaps it is a wakeup call for our colleagues in the print media to rethink their strategies, otherwise we will die,” he said.

“While I acknowledge that it contributes to the democratisation of society and diversity of views, citizen journalism is ungovernable and sometimes can be destructive,” Amina Frense, project manager of the South African Broadcasting Association (SABA), told Bizcommunity.com on the sidelines of the conference.

“It is a free-for-all platform, which unfortunately cannot be blocked. I would fairly say that traditional media must also take the blame for the sudden rise of citizen journalism,” Frense said.

“Traditional media always say we can’t send a reporter there because we don’t have money, or we are trying to keep our correspondents’ expenses low. A country needs a knowledgeable and informed audience to advance. Don’t’ leave your audiences vulnerable, and this is what traditional media has been doing all these years.

“If you do that, someone might fill that space and start feeding your audiences with unsorted information that can distract them. And now the question is, what are we going to do with this information explosion?

Rosemary Orkale-Okello, of Nigeria, said: “We can say whatever we want but one thing is for sure, our communities have taken over the reins of media. The myth of five W and one H has finally been broken and citizen journalism is making big media redefine their strategies. The onus is now on us to change the way to do business.”

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