What the heck is citizen journalism, anyway? Steve Outing offers a pretty good definition with his 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism.
Outing's 11 layers outline a continuum spanning from main stream media opening up to public comment at one end and the radical no-editors-only-citizen-reporters approach at the other end (seen at sites like WikiNews ).
Personally I think layer no. 10 is both the most viable and interesting one. Here Outing presents the idea of a news site comprised of reports by professional journalists directly alongside submissions from everyday citizens.
»It's this vision of citizen journalism complementing and adding to professional journalism that is so compelling -- at least in theory. Few news organizations have the staff manpower to cover everything that their readers are interested in, but by tapping the volunteer (or cheap) resources of the citizenry, a news organization can potentially provide coverage down to the Little League team and church-group level, as well as offer better and more diverse coverage of larger issues by bringing in more voices and perspectives,« Steve Outing writes.
Unfortunately no news organization has yet had the guts to test this approach. One of the reasons probably being that professional journalists find it difficult accepting reporting from ordinary citizens alongside pro writing.
Nevertheless, I think this combination of pro and citizen-writing is where web journalism will be heading in the future.
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