Digital Trends

How to be a Great Citizen Journalist -Being a citizen journalist comes with great responsibility, if you want to earn people’s trust and be credible. We talk with Fred Brown, current vice chair of the Society of Professional Journalist’s ethics committee, about the must-have ethical foundation that every good citizen journalist should have. Fred discusses the main weapons in a citizen journalist’s arsenal, which include video journalism, photo journalism, blogging and micro blogs, such as Twitter. He also offers some tips for citizen journalists, like not getting lost in the moment, and remaining as a detached observer when reporting the news.

The “Bloggers' Code of Ethics” mentioned in the podcast can be found here.

Guest Include:

Fred Brown, Vice Chair of the Society of Professional Journalist’s ethics committee

About Fred Brown (bio courtesy of the Society of Professional Journalists):

Fred Brown is a former national president of SPJ (1997-98) and is very active on its ethics committee. He writes a column on ethics for Quill magazine and served on the committee that wrote the Society’s 1996 code of ethics.

Brown officially retired from The Denver Post in early 2002, but continues to write a Sunday editorial page column for the newspaper. He also does analysis for Denver’s NBC television station, teaches communication ethics at the University of Denver, and is a principal in Hartman & Brown, LLP, a media training and consulting firm. He has won several awards for writing and community service, including a Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial writing in 1988. He is an Honor Alumnus of Colorado State University, a member of the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame, and serves on the boards of directors of Colorado Public Radio, the Colorado Freedom of Information Council and the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation.

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