Two Forms of Journalism Recent events such as the tsunami disaster (where blogs helped cover the huge scope of the story), the Iraq War (where blogs help present both the opinions of all the parties involved), the scandal of Dan Rather, a CBS Evening News anchor who reported as authentic a series of forged documents on George W. Bush (where the blogs were extremely instrumental in exposing him) have all contributed to the growing popularity of citizen journalism. So why is there a recent growth in the popularity of citizen journalism? Is it because of scandals that have eroded the credibility of traditional journalism or that it is no longer in touch with today's media landscape? And does all this ultimately mean the decline of traditional journalism? Citizen journalism, We media, Participatory media or Citizen media, as it is also called, is the act of citizens playing an active role in gathering, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. It is essentially the act of extending "press" to what was traditionally called the public. Citizen journalism is of fundamental importance mainly because it provides independent, wide-ranging and to some extent relevant information which has created a democratic environment regarding information. Traditional journalism, on the other hand, whose "Super Concepts" are truthful, impartial, complete and fair makes it a style of writing that presents only the bare facts of the stories and events it covers. However, journalism has repeatedly witnessed numerous scandals, one of the most notorious of which is the infamous "Jimmy's World" article by Washington Post journalist Janet Cooke, in which she wrote a life-long profile of... half of the paper... the strength of participatory media is the creation of an "autonomous" journalist free to express his opinion, which gives the voice back to the journalist. This is especially important during a crisis situation where people need a sense of belonging and not just one party's point of view is superior. This is essentially what blogs provide to the public. In conclusion, both forms of journalism shine in different situations. Old media in events where factual information is more important than the presentation of opinion and new media in crisis situations when vivid first-person narrative and a sense of ownership are needed. Essentially, these two forms of media complement each other, where one is weak and the other is strong. So, we would be better off drawing on our strengths instead of fighting the “press” to be well-informed citizens of the world.