"Citizen Journalism"

I read the stuff in that section, and I'm not a big fan. About 90% of the content were produced by the staff, and of the other 10%, most of it were classifieds. The few actual "reporting" done by readers were pretty mediocre pieces of writing. And as far as the "journalism" side of it, see this post:

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Tree Slaughter by BP-Amoco pipeline crews
Sandi 06/29/07 02:40 PM 124 hits

Residents are furious about the destruction caused by BP-Amoco in clearing their oil pipeline through Homer Glen. Hundreds of trees have been mutilated or cut down and thousands more are slated for removal. BP claims that it is necessary to clear 25' on either side of their buried pipeline. Residents ask why now, since the pipeline & the trees have coexisted for the past 60 years.

Homer Glen officials have asked BP crews to stop cutting until the situation is resolved, but residents have seen crews still clearing the pipeline.

If you see any BP crews out cutting trees along the pipeline, please call the Homer Glen Village office at 708-301-0632 and let them know.
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Furious, huh? Did she go door-to-door to gauge all the residents' reaction, or is this just her and her two neighbors? Your readers say your reporting is biased and this is your solution? Allow people to post stuff with strongly biased words like "furious" and "mutilated"? And the part about why BP needs to clear the trees now after they've been there for 60 years? A real journalist would make the effort to find out. That's what journalism is about. To call stuff like this "journalism" is an insult to the the profession and only feeds the public misconception that any biased crap they read on the web is created by journalists. I have no problem with newspapers creating message boards and forums for their readers, but don't lump it in with the work produced by your staff and cheapen their efforts.

The problem is that newspapers see a few high-profile cases of bloggers digging up something newsworthy, and they think that most of their readers can do the same thing, forgetting that usually when a blogger puts in the kind of free time to do the level of investigating and reporting that journalists do as their job, it's usually because that person has an ax to grind on the issue, so whatever they present is likely naturally biased to begin with. But because bloggers don't belong to "the media", the public doesn't take them to task for accuracy. And when they dig up something, it's portrayed as someone telling "the real story" while the "biased media" was trying to cover up the truth. Most readers don't have the time or interest to do any kind of in-depth reporting, and no obligation to try to report it in an objective, fair manner. So you end up with stuff like the story above.

 

I also like the term "reverse publishing" used for when a quality item is submitted and makes it to the print edition. I'm not sure where the reverse part is, but putting it in the paper is publishing, regardless of source.

I don't see citizen journalism working out. I think once people who try this figure out that journalism is hard -- what with all the fact gathering and occasional quoting -- that blogging will be where it's at.