The exchange shd be very revealing: the focus is on 'cost of obtaining "fact"'. It avoids the main drive for "citizen journalism" - the perception in "citizens" that journalists "choose" both their facts and how they weave it into a story, based on hidden biases and agendas.
note defenders of, "organized journalism" r quick to suspect hidden biases in their critics ("no name"'s comments hv no value as he is anonymous& defender doesnt know his "biases")- but don't see that citizens may have reciprocal suspicions of hidden biases in organized journos.
there are undoubted values in journalism exposing "facts" that cry out for corrective action. But the doubts have always remained about the selection of cases/"facts" that are chosen to be investigated - frm the traceable beginnings of modern journalism meant for mass consumption
Did journalists and their org choose "facts" to be investigated based on feasibility alone or because some vested interest saw value in exposing one while suppressing another? Ironically, both modern democracy and modern judiciary make organized journalism a tool of power.
People at the receiving end have long been skeptical of mainstream journalism as monopolies of "fact" creation, as correctly pointed out - they cant pay the costs of "fact finding", but whats not pointed out, they for the same reason, cant pay for verifying journalist's "story".
Further, in many parts of the world, journalists "stories" jar on individual's and the collective's own experiences - which over time makes them see patterns of biases in how "facts" are selected to be highlighted, and how they are further woven into stories.
the final, and the most problematic part of organized journalism is that they don't simply state "facts" that they claim to hv found - but they "make a story": and its the story making part where it all goes down the drain as far as biases or agendas are concerned.
organized journalism forever was summed for me in a journalists defense of why parts of "fact" that wd hv gone against a particular ideology were omitted from a "report" even though there was direct relevance for what happened, as the story made actual victims were responsible:
she claimed "there's a 100 ways of making a story: which one a journalist chooses is her prerogative". Obviously there can't be 100 different versions of a single "fact". Here is the problem with journalism - they dont simply state "facts" but they "make a story".
