Real life Gossip Girl? Journalism in the wrong hands.

We often think of Journalism as a powerful thing. It gives a voice to the voiceless, it allows people to understand other people, events and the information they are given. Journalism allows people to voice their opinions which is made even easier on social networking sites. The additional benefit of social media is one's ability to voice their opinion with an added choice to be anonymous. This allows them to be whomever them want to be, free of judgement and ridicule and its give them a whole new level of freedom as they -in a sense- become irresponsible for the things they publish for the world to see. To be frank, Journalism is a wonderful thing, however when it's power is in the hands of someone with bad moral and intentions, it can be an extremely dangerous and devastating tool. That is when Journalism is a curse.

I have first-hand witnessed bad journalism at it's finest. At some point in your life, I'm sure you have cross paths with the popular teen drama TV series 'Gossip Girl'. A quick overview of the series "Narrated by the omniscient blogger "Gossip Girl",  the series revolves around the lives of privileged young adults on Manhattan's Upper East Side in New York City.  The series is largely based around a person who's viral blogging of the secrets and scandals of these people causes havoc, destroying people, relationships, job opportunities and entire lives.

Needless to say, this Gossip Girl claims to be helping the people, by providing information on the elite in order to keep their audience well informed of the events happening around them. This show seems to be having quite an impact on it's viewers, as just recently there has been a creation of a Sunshine Coast Gossip girl.

"Gossip Girl here, your one and only source on Sunshine Coast's elite. XOXO"

This site is purely dedicated to posting the secrets, events and 'scandals' occurring around the Sunshine Coast. The flaws of this type of journalism is already clear, however the fact that this Sunshine Coast Gossip Girl is posting whatever things people send into her is absurd. There is no checking of the reliability of the sources, or even cross checking that these 'facts' are true, but skips this process and publishes these hurtful things about people -that 90% prove to be untrue- with little consideration as to the fact that they are posting these lies to the big wide world. The implications of such are limitless. Not only are they tainting someone's life with rumors, creating a bad reputation for that person but furthermore is publishing some of people most deep down heartbreaking secrets for all to see, friends and enemies. What might seem as harmless fun, can haunt these people for a long time.

My point is that whilst Journalism is an incredible thing, and is essential for the world today, it can also be a dangerous thing when the power within is abused. Gossip Girl uses a popular form of social media, blogging, which we are all now familiar with, but uses it to destroy people rather than help them. So the moral of this story is to be careful how you use the power. Use it to help, rather than destroy. The power is yours.