By Deepanshu Bhatia

Citizen journalism means ordinary people taking an active part in collecting, reporting, and sharing news and information. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube offer new ways to engage with the public, and with smartphones and easy internet access, anyone can now upload content freely and act as a citizen journalist.

For many years, journalism was reserved for people with professional training, such as a degree in journalism. That has changed dramatically. People without any formal journalistic training can now produce news content themselves and reach a wide audience.

India has seen the power of this shift. During the public response to the 2012 Delhi gang rape case, in which the victim became known as Nirbhaya, ordinary citizens came forward as reporters. They posted photographs and videos online, mainstream media outlets carried user-generated content, and young, technology-savvy Indians spread their outrage across the country. Within days, a single case had grown into a national movement demanding stronger laws and change in the legal system.

Mainstream media does not always cover the stories that matter most to ordinary people, and this is where citizen journalists step in. Even across borders, citizen journalists in India and Pakistan share positive stories about each other's countries that larger media houses rarely show.

But being a citizen journalist is not easy. Citizen journalists have a responsibility to keep personal biases and agendas out of their reporting. It is their moral duty to double-check information and establish its credibility before sharing it, because one wrong piece of information can destroy an innocent person's life. Anyone who creates fake news, or presents news in a misleading way in the hope of going viral, can also face legal consequences.

Citizen journalism brings the news back to where it belongs: the topics that matter to ordinary people.