NEW YORK, July 26 (UPI) -- Citizen journalists are changing the way people receive the news and challenging mainstream journalists covering the Middle East.
YouTube.com claims that videos from their site are viewed 100 million times a day by people from all over the world, ABC News reported.
"For years news came from on high, in that it only traveled one way," Brent Cunningham, managing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, told ABC News. "Now we see that it goes both ways, there's blowback, there are ways to challenge the press."
The opportunity to offer information from the ground, however, is hindered by a lack of accountability.
When The New York Times makes a mistake, there are more than enough critics to ensure that the newspaper takes action against the offenders, ABC News said. But when an anonymous blogger posts a piece of video, there's no one to hold accountable to be sure what's being viewed is accurate or fair.
