Old Media = Temporary Message

After five months, suddenly a comment appeared on the article of a teacher who hits his student and collapsed. It came from a teacher of the mentioned school. The school were testing its internet connection and they found this article. The teacher complained that the media is not always uploading the true story, so citizen should also be more careful in choosing news to spread out. He said that effect of the incident was made stronger in the media than it really was, the student was not collapsed. He even said that they have the verification letter from the student and his parents.

The article is a copy and paste article from the mainstream media.I think the contributor who upload that story wanted to share the news from the mainstream media that she found important. The message for us is clear: a teacher hits his student, he also teaches taekwondo (extra curricular).

A teacher should not do that to his student, a martial art sportsman would not do it either!

So Vincent Maher's theory that the old media brings temporary message is so true! Off course I knew it before, that is why I keep my clippings (for the forgetful me!). But the function of citizen journalism in Indonesia is really real. It brings persistent message, it helps the mainstream media voice out their views. Not all of the Indonesian media goes online, even those who goes online did not always put its readers' letters online!

I would always prefer an article of my own. It means that I would be presenting to the readers some facts I gathered through the mainstream media, or through another blogger, and add my own perspective. I think by doing that I'm also promoting the media or others' blog. Some other time, if I do have the chance to experience something important, then I can write about it too. Perhaps I am mixing the idea of blogging and the idea of citizen journalism. Let's join the experiment of those professional journalists!