Some many not know this but journalism is very powerful. The Internet has made videos and blogging powerful too.
Back in the ‘70s two young journalists by the name of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward worked at the Washington Post. They stumbled upon a burglary at the Democratic National Committee, which lead them to a two-year investigation. In their investigation they discovered Nixon’s administration along with many other political figures were involved. Through their investigation they also determined that the President himself, Richard Nixon was also involved. The reporting they did shed light to the truth and it resulting in Nixon resigning from office.
That was over 35 years ago, in todays world we have the Internet available to the masses. People now days don’t always just pick up the paper or watch the news on TV to get news. The Internet has become the tool of choice for many. Mostly anyone in the world can post videos, blogs, tweets, post, etc. for the whole world to see. Before journalists/producers would decide what will go in the paper or would miss a story because they couldn’t be everywhere. So the amount of information was a lot less than what we have now. Today the amount of information being published to the public is more than we can process or sometimes need.
So we know how powerful journalism can be, but how powerful can journalism media/social media be?
Lets take the offensive anti-Muslim YouTube video that was posted by a low budget film in California. This video sparked violence in Egypt and spread to the Middle East. As retaliation to the video U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and several others were killed Benghazi, Libya.
That simple video led to the death of several people and an upheaval from both sides of the situation. This is another example of why anyone who distributes information (blogs, videos, stories, etc.) is very powerful.