Aside from the endless debate regarding the topics of privacy and security, social media has facilitated the rise of a “new” type of journalism. Recently, a disruption in the classic industry of news publishing has emerged. Its effects were first experienced through the introduction of web blogging when everyday people could post their own opinions on trending news stories to an audience. One no longer had to be a trained journalist who worked for a mainstream news agency – the only necessities to have your voice heard was a computer and access to the Internet. However, as social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter surfaced, greater effects of rapid data transfer and large-scale communication materialized. Indeed, the events of last year’s Arab Spring were possible in large part to the aforementioned companies. With these events in mind, one can extrapolate the implications of the impact of social media.

Before an analysis can be made regarding the influence that social networks have had on conventional media, we must first break down the current status of journalism. The industry is controlled by a small number of big-name agencies; however, as with all corporations, other factors affect the news that the public receives. Politics result in censorship and bias. Modern news agencies like Fox and CNN are filtered through the views of a large corporation and are subject to bias from political, economic, or social influence. Clearly, a platform where unbiased and uncensored news can be shared is a concept that is in dire need of concrete implementation. For the past year, I have been involved in a startup called Orchive that has been attempting to discover the balance between social media and journalism that would allow everyday people to report the news and deem what articles are worthy of attention.

Essentially, Orchive would foster a community of dedicated firsthand reporters around the world who would not only compose articles of news occurring in their location, but also vote on the trending topics to determine what reports rise to the top of the news feed. Users have profiles and can create “organizations” that can then release reports as a collective whole. All in all, it’s a simple application of social media that has an immense impact on a specific market – journalism is meant to spread awareness of the truth, not a fabricated and predisposed version of it.

By now you’re probably asking the question, what does this have to do with Facebook? In the advent of social media, many of the things you see on the web have some connection with Facebook – a like button there, a share here. Orchive is incidentally linked with your Facebook account so your reports not only reach the online news community, but also your friends in everyday life. Every time you make a report, your wall updates with a link to the page. This sort of “publishing” is the crux of successful journalism – reaching all different types of audiences. And clearly, none of this would have been possible without the rise of social networking whose presence is felt everywhere today.

You can learn more about Orchive at http://orchive.com/about and https://www.facebook.com/Orchive