A couple of outreach efforts by ProPublica this week caught my eye as examples of how the Web can make journalism more open and effective — and reminders that both journalists and the public need much more of this.

The first was a post on the ProPublica website Monday offering a "step by step guide" and searchable database for anyone tracing the influence of a nonprofit organization called ALEC that has proven highly effective in developing "model bills" for state legislatures.

The second was a conference call Tuesday that drew about 140 people to hear about using ProPublica-built data and a news application for reporting on education access issues in local schools and districts.

Despite the fact that no local MSM showed up (according to the comments - only two TV cameras filming, no one to ask questions), the Seattle Public Schools would not allow a citizen who blogs about education to ask questions. Only "unbiased" media can do that.

You've likely read some of Demand's content without realizing it. Founded in 2006, the company runs a slew of popular Internet portals, including eHow.com Cracked.com and Livestrong.com that receive 100 million hits a month — more traffic than any of the digital properties of Disney, NBC, ESPN or, yes, Time Inc. The company, based in Santa Monica, Calif., is also directing an army of freelancers to write stories that appear in traditional media outlets, most notably in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's weekly travel section, and a Demand executive says more deals with large off-line brands will be announced soon.

Demotix is a new type of wire service designed to make it easier for international news stories by citizen journalists and freelance reporters to make it into the mainstream media.

The U.K. company is essentially a user-friendly middleman. For instance, a photographer in Afghanistan with an image of a car bombing can log in to the Demotix website and upload an image with caption info; Demotix reviews it and pushes it to the company's feed.

Then, news outlets like The Wall Street Journal, the Times of London and The Telegraph, etc., subscribe to the feed, just like they do for established news agencies like the Associated Press and Reuters, and buy stories and assets they deem important.

We're looking for a few local writers to post blog entries daily on political happenings in Washington, DC.

Stuff like: council meetings, local political celebrity sightings, mayoral news, local elections, police/crime stuff, and D.C.-specific stories like the ongoing same-sex marriage legislation and continued drama with taxi cab regulations.

If you or anyone you know would fit the bill, please let me know right here in the comments. I will consider people with Newsvine columns (or a written track record elsewhere on the web) displaying DC-related material ahead of others who indicate interest in participating, but haven't yet written about these topics or otherwise demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. So, help speed along the process by including relevant links to your work.

Once I have narrowed it down to a group of potential candidates, I will provide additional details. This is an ongoing, paid gig.

The forms have been filled out and the hurdles have been cleared: As of today, I am officially registered to cover the 2010 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas as an MSNBC.com / Newsvine correspondent, live-blogging from the NBC Universal Blogger Lounge and elsewhere aro …

By the time photojournalists learned that three bombs had detonated in the London Underground, they knew that they were already too late. They hurried to the station entrances, anyway—though police had already blocked access to the tube—and documented train passengers gradually emerging from the tunnels below.

Their photos were sharp, emotional, and effective. But the photographs and video footage that the BBC would later broadcast for hours on end had been taken nearly 30 meters beneath the professionals' feet.

Fire at the night club "Khromaya Loshad" (Lame Horse) [RUS] in a central Russian city Perm killed more than 100 people. According to an official version, the fire was caused by fireworks inside the club. Within minutes after the tragedy, Russian Internet users turned to blogs, forums and social media sites to share information about the horrific event.

his is a summary of a paper that explores, in great depth and detail, the role of technologies that use digitally managed personal information to shape the content and direct the delivery of content in a journalistic setting. The most important conclusions of this paper are: New technologies obviate the media but not the journalist or the receiver of the information; and this ... the use of your private electronic information to determine what part of Cyberspace you will experience and how ... is inevitable.

Today's guest panel debate went from the left to the right and also took into account the centrist view regarding the issue of journalism and in particular what constitutes news versus feature stories, the practice of flaming behind a pseudonym and how to prevent and/or respond to it, and whether traditional journalists will successfully make the transition to citizen journalism.

Finally and perhaps what represented the most energetic exchange centered on the viability of government intervention by way of the FTC, to institute control of the way and manner in which individuals use social media to disseminate information. In essence, are we capable of being our own filters relative to the information we accept or reject regardless of the medium used?

The workshop is being held on December 1 & 2 and will be available via webcast.

Paul Carr writes in Techcrunch – After Fort Hood, another example of how 'citizen journalists' can't handle the truth. Paul describes that during the Fort Hood news blackout, Twitter updates contributed to the disinformation. Basically everything that was reported was totally wrong. Paul Carr looks at the story as an opportunity to reflect about the role of social media

Normally, I'm pretty gung-ho for social media and cit­i­zen jour­nal­ism. I really do believe that jour­nal­ism isn't some high-and-mighty, elit­ist pro­fes­sion. Real peo­ple with drive and curios­ity can report news and write analy­sis, regard­less of their educations.
...
In the wake of the Fort Hood shoot­ings, Paul Carr wrote an essay for TechCrunch that crit­i­cizes a blog­ger at the base for send­ing out tweets from within. He acknowl­edges that this woman prob­a­bly thought she was doing the right thing by spread­ing infor­ma­tion, but the fact is that she was wrong on almost every detail she tweeted.

Thoroughness.
Accuracy.
Fairness.
Independence.
Transparency.

Domke did a study with old and young news consumers. The young ones asked, "Why did you let only a few people decide the news for you?" The sixty–five plus group said, "how do you even know what is news?" The twenty–somethings responded, "at least we get to figure it out for ourselves." Domke is the chairman of the University of Washington's Department of Communications. He says the current health care debate, for example, is more dynamic and robust than ever. That's the way it ought to be.

This is a great podcast segment in a 4-part series on the digital media revolution.

From time to time we at Newsvine HQ like to remind the Community of certain rules that, if followed, help ensure that Newsvine remains a fair and equitable place for everyone. Please take a few moments to consider the following rules and conventions regarding the publishing of articles to Newsvine.

Please, do not publish "articles" consisting mostly or solely of copied text from other web pages or emails. Doing so will result in the removal of that content as well as likely restriction and/or cancelation of your Newsvine account. By publishing an article to Newsvine, you are implicitly asserting that said content is legally yours to publish in its entirety.

Small amounts of text may be inserted into original articles written by you, so long as those portions of the text are clearly identified using blockquotes, proper attribution given with a link back to the original source of said content. Again, the amount of text originally written by you should greatly outweigh the amount of "borrowed" text, if you would like to publish the resulting piece as an article to Newsvine.

IF the text you would like to contribute for discussion to Newsvine is found elsewhere on the web, and you do not plan to write the majority of the contribution yourself, seed a link instead. Posting content that should be seeded as a link is a disservice to Newsvine contributors who have taken the time to express themselves creatively through publishing original articles, since these illegitimate "articles" compete for the same space reserved for actual original articles.

There has been some questionable borrowing of content posted to the Vine of late. I would like to give the benefit of the doubt to the offending parties, assuming that they did not know better, but copyright infringement and plagiarism is not allowed per the User Agreement, regardless of intent. There is absolutely no excuse for a repeated offense of this type.

To recap: do not publish content to Newsvine as an article (as opposed to a seed) if you are not the original author or copyright holder of said content. IF you use others' content from an external source, you should likely be seeding that content and you definitely should be giving credit to the source of that content as well as a link to the original content. In general, it is inadvisable (and lazy) to post content taken from email FWDs to anywhere on Newsvine, so avoid this practice altogether.

Just to make it doubly-clear, copyright and plagiarism-related violations will be met with the stiffest penalties issued by Newsvine Moderators.

Thank you for understanding that these rules are in place for legal reasons, to respect the intellectual property rights of others, and to support and recognize the creativity and original contributions of Newsvine writers.

If at all possible, don't go into education journalism or stay there long. It's among the lowest-prestige beats in a newsroom, and will require you to endure your editors' and colleagues' inane stories about their childhood experiences in school (or the experiences of their children). You will be looked down on by your peers, and even your parents. No matter that schools are important, and everywhere, and sometimes what goes down in them is pretty damn amazing. The beat might keep you employed for a few extra months, but it's not worth it.

When she headed the Huffington Post's "OfftheBus" project, Amanda Michel led a nationwide team of citizen reporters as they looked into stories of the 2008 presidential election that weren't covered by the media. Her work landed her a position as ProPublica's editor of distributed reporting.

Alison van Diggelen took all this business about anyone being a citizen journalist seriously.

She's not the sort to register with Blogger to start tapping out essays on the battles between California gray squirrels and the pesky blue jays in her verdant backyard.

Instead, through preparation, determination and an irresistible charm, she's become a one-woman media machine in Silicon Valley.

Hack a Holga: How to wring great photos out of cheap Chinese plastic.

Despite the birth of high-resolution point-and-shoots for everyone, the lowly Holga camera continues to draw legions of fanatics with its quirky, often rather poor quality images. It's the perfect antidote to a digital world were even your grandmother is posting her iPhone photos on Twitter.

While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.

Here comes the story of citizen journalism and its failings. The worldwide web (internet) has become almost as fast at spreading good news as it is at spreading malice and defamatory material. What used to be tucked under people's tight armpits and later unfurled and read at home, is now read by millions, including curious kids at the click of the mouse. Social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, discussion forums, and online bulletins have become avenues for evaluating our bosses, sharing gossip, planning evil, and sending SOS as well.

We all have been tirelessly screaming about issues related to Congressional leaders abdicating their main responsibility of 'oversight.' We have been outraged for way too long at seeing 'no' accountability whatsoever in many known cases of extreme wrongdoing. I, and many of you, believe that the biggest reason for this was, and still is, the lack of true journalism and media coverage --- which acts as the necessary pressure and catalyst for those spineless politicians on the Hill and in the Executive branch. Or, at least it's supposed to. So, in our book, the MSM have been the main culprit.

Well, here is a chance to turn the tables.

A short documentary and example of citizen journalism about the average citizens and their rights to capture video in public spaces. The police community officer in the video appears clueless.

As gunmen and police engaged in a running three-day battle through the streets and hotels of Mumbai that left more than 100 dead Friday, social-networking services such as Twitter and Flickr were flooded with news, rumors and pictures of the mayhem.

Twitter was inundated with "tweets"--short bursts of information posted by users -

Right now, the Indian city of Mumbai is reeling under coordinated terrorist attacks. In addition to mainstream news coverage from India and around the world, Internet users are sharing news and information -- including people in Mumbai, some of whom are at or near the attack scenes.

Here's a quick roundup of social media to check for updates and reactions.

It was Nieman reunion time last weekend, and the honored veterans of journalism were gathered in the very shadow of Harvard. Our panel was called: "Voices from the New World of Journalism."

"I think we're fooling ourselves a little bit in how much change is needed," Michael Skoler of American Public Media said. The needed transformation lies well beyond the use of new tools. "People expect to share information." But that goes against our ethos – getting the scoop, keeping it exclusive. Nor does allowing people to participate in – not just respond to -- our work come naturally. "Deep in our souls we feel like that's dumbing down our journalism. I would argue that it's smartening it up."

The CU School of Journalism and Mass Communication has received $110,000 in grant money from the McCormick Foundation of Chicago to explore "citizen journalism" in the media environment.

"The whole notion of trained professionals is crumbling," said Paul Voakes, Dean of CU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. "We're asking the question 'Can citizen journalism have a purpose?'"

Voakes said that the project, titled "Resolving Door," will attempt to explore the media's role in forming community while addressing the potential impact that non-professionals may have on the newsroom of the future.

A US-based Nigerian news blogger is being held without charge by Nigeria's secret service.

Jonathan Elendu was taken into custody on Saturday when he arrived in the capital, Abuja, on a family visit.

The State Security Service (SSS) has refused to allow his lawyers access to him and denied him a medical visit.

THROUGHOUT this election season, Americans have used the extraordinary capacity of digital technologies to capture and respond to arguments with which they disagree. YouTube has become the channel of choice for following who is saying what, from the presidential campaign to races for city council.

But this explosion in citizen-generated political speech has been met with a troubling response: the increasing use of copyright laws as tools for censorship.

The new EyeMobile application for the iPhone allows citizen journalist to broadcast live from anywhere. Journalist can remotely track how many views their story receives and participate in discussion groups. The application is free from iTunes

On behalf of the Newsvine Team, msnbc.com, MSNBC Television and NBC News, I would like to show our appreciation to Miss Dev, for her amazing work in making Newsvine DNC 2008 coverage a complete success.

Without Dev's selfless hard work, creativity, inspiration, attention to detail, persistence and willingness to roll with the punches, our coverage of the DNC would not have been possible. Of the many things Miss Dev did, here are just a few that stood out as well above and beyond the call of duty:

• Finding Newsvine DNC HQ - a charming house with wifi (that also came with a car!), and stocking it with Colorado-brewed beer and vodka.
• Properly preparing us for our visit to Denver.
• Always being our eyes and ears on the ground.
• Churning out amazing articles day after day, while covering the convention, protests and security in Denver while also juggling 9-5 work!
• Spending 3.5 hours out in the 95+ degree Denver heat to get our press credentials.
• Handling all forms of logistics about where to meet, eat, drink, sleep and write.
• Being a good sport about being separated from the rest of us at Mile High.
• Inspiring her own Mom to also participate in Newsvine DNC coverage!

In addition to bringing Viki, Killfile and me to the DNC, Dev also successfully brought the DNC to thousands of people across the world, in the way that only she can do. She did this by consistently writing fantastic, honest articles that explored complex issues and problems facing ordinary Denverites, as well as America at large. The topics she covered were largely left unexplored by the media, which is why msnbc.com decided to feature the following stories written by Miss Dev directly on the Cover as well the Politics Section.

The Democratic Hypocrisy, or A Person's A Person

I Was There

The "Greenest" Convention

(In)security in Denver

Visiting Denver : A Local's Guide to Her Home City

All that she has done for us, and for Newsvine, goes far beyond being an amazing Newsviner and Citizen Journalist. She is, quite simply, an amazing person. Dev's work at the DNC has paved the road in many important ways for other Newsviners to cover future events that continue to shape our world.

Please join us in recognizing Miss Dev's amazing work, tireless commitment and her unparalleled all-around contribution to Newsvine's mission and purpose, by celebrating her Random Act of Vineness award.

- Calvin

Flip on CNN or surf to your favorite mainstream news site — try the L.A. Times for starters — and prepare to be inundated with information from the Democratic National Convention. For the next two weeks as the conventions run their course, you can expect a heavy dose of every minute detail, including what the presidential candidate's siblings have to say and the age-old mystery of whether Secret Service operatives can stop a tornado (hint: They can't).

Social media like YouTube and Fark.com will afford you no escape, either. Let's look at how Web 2.0 is crashing the parties.

The first working day of a party convention is never going to be a comfortable one. Credentials will be misplaced, procedures will be unknown, and routes will be circuitous, often ending in the wrong place.

Even convention luminaries like Joe Scarborough, Al Sharpton and Bill Kristol got caught up in security hiccups in the morning, but they took it in good humor because it rarely ends in tears. Convention veterans know that it takes awhile for the temporary village of a huge event to assemble itself.

The Huffington Post has had some notable successes with its citizen journalism spin-off, Off The Bus -- but it could soon have some competition from a new website with a big built-in advantage.

Allvoices.com also wants to turn regular people into reporters, but, unlike Huffpo, it's willing to pay them for their big scoops or catchy blog posts. Today, the San Francisco-based social network-slash-news site, which went live two weeks ago after a year in beta, unveiled a play to award users up to $10,000 for writing stories that attract a lot of eyeballs.

Howard Rheingold describes the process he used to design a Social Media classroom in this 8 minute video.

Mike Whitney – Fly by News August 6, 2008

My friend Tom Feeley is in Big trouble. He runs the web site informationclearinghouse.info which updates "news you won't find in the corporate media" every day. The site is strongly anti-war.

Tom has gotten his share of death threats over the years, but what happened this week is a lot more serious.

Two days ago, Tom's wife found three well dressed men in their kitchen. The man who did all the talking, told Tom's wife (I won't give her name) that Tom must "Stop what he is doing on the Internet, NOW!" As crazy as it sounds, he pulled back his lapel and showed her a gun of some kind which she could not identify. Like I said, Tom has been threatened before, but nothing like this. 4 years ago, he was in a parking lot at Long's Drug store in Southern California and when he tried to open his door to get out, a man in a car next to him opened his door at precisely the same time which prevented Tom from getting out. Then, a 40-ish year old man got out of the passenger side of the vehicle and approached Tom saying, "You need to stop what you are doing on the web".

Tom said the man was overweight and had his shirt untucked. Tom was taken aback, but (after collecting himself said) "What the @!$%#? Who do you think you are telling me what I can do?"

The man answered, "Tom, I'm just giving you some good advice. You should take my advice, Tom."

This is all I know about the incident. Since, then, there have been occassional death threats, but nothing like what happened on Sunday. Tom's wife is hysterical and has not returned to the house since the incident. She contacted the FBI but the FBI said their was nothing they could do. Tom and his wife separated recently after a 30 year marraige, so he is publishing from a different location.

I am very happy to announce that after several months of planning and collaboration between Newsvine users and staff, msnbc.com, NBC News and convention organizers - Newsvine will be sending several of our best contributors to both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention. We will have direct, unfiltered coverage from our Newsvine members from both inside the convention halls and outside the conventions at the various events surrounding the national conventions.

With this political season continuing to be one of the most exciting races for the White House in history, we are thrilled to provide access to our Newsviners to provide us citizen coverage alongside the that of the MSM.

So, without further ado, here are the teams and the events they'll cover:

Democratic National Convention

• Chris "Killfile" Thomas
• Viki "Babbles" Gonia
• Miss Dev
• Matt Britten (MySpace)

Republican National Convention

• Rob Ballew
• Adam Hobson
• The OttO Show

Ron Paul - Rally for the Republic

• Adam Hobson
• Stacy Malbon
• Ben Josephs

RNC Protests - (independent effort)

• Stacy Malbon
• Ben Josephs
• azsky13

Newsvine coverage of the national conventions will be aggregated to these two groups: RNC & DNC. These groups exist solely for the purpose of convention attendees working with Newsvine to publish original articles during the convention, and for possible seeding/clipping during the lead up to the conventions. If you are not one of these people, please do not bother attempting to join the group since membership is closed. Instead, add these two groups to your watchlists. The articles produced by the two groups of Newsviners on the ground at the national conventions will be featured on the Newsvine Front Page, in addition to various pages at msnbc.com. More details on syndication to follow.

In addition to our citizen coverage of the national conventions, Newsvine contributors on the ground in the national convention states are invited to publish alongside msnbc.com's Gut Check America team in taking a deeper look at how uncertain economic times are affecting residents of Colorado and Minnesota, as well as what impact the national conventions have brought to residents of these two states. More details on this to come soon as well.

I genuinely hope that our efforts to gain access for and allow for news coverage to be provided by your very own fellow Newsvine members shows that our commitment to pushing forward the boundaries of citizen journalism and social media is stronger than ever. There have clearly been some growing pains that have come along with joining the msnbc.com family, and as some of the most passionate members of this community have voiced, being in the spotlight does have its challenges. But, having Newsvine represented at the national level by having your peers in attendance at the DNC and RNC, and armed with a stronger voice than ever, would never have been possible in the past. For this, I thank my colleagues at msnbc.com and NBC News and especially our very talented and steadfast Newsvine participants.

Here's to taking our collective effort to the next level.

The Newsvine Team would like to recognize the work of JFXGILLIS in his recent article, Correctly Political: Liquid Lunch with Donald Rumsfeld. In this article, Jack Gillis presents a number of declassified audio clips, made available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act, and offers a smart analysis of the Pentagon's questionable relationship with a number of retired military officers who served as "independent" military analysts in the mainstream media.

Jack's article was picked up widely across the web, by sites such as The Huffington Post and Daily Kos. In perhaps the most interesting turn of events, one of the actual attendees of a luncheon detailed in Gillis' article, Command Sergeant Major Steven Greer (USA, Ret), showed up in Jack's thread to clear up several facts, as well as to offer his own viewpoint of the controversy - and Jack later amended his article accordingly, in the interest of accuracy.

Jack's work is emblematic of what we like to see Newsviners doing (i.e., using the resources at their disposal to offer perspectives on events in the media that remain otherwise unexplored and/or underrepresented). While Command Sergeant Major Steven Greer's appearance at Newsvine couldn't have been predicted, we are thrilled to see the Newsvine platform reach its fullest potential by not only being a place where the news is thoroughly discussed, but also serving as a venue for news to continue to unfold.

We salute Mr. Gillis' efforts and recognize the tremendous creativity, initiative and attention to detail he displayed in publishing the piece described above. We would also like to take this opportunity to recognize Jack Gillis' instrumental role in the migration and settlement of the NYTimes Refugees - a group of folks who once arrived as strangers to this community but now call Newsvine home and are an integral part of it.

Thank you, Jack Gillis, and congratulations.

Miami real estate agent Lucas Lechuga began blogging to share his knowledge of the local market. He didn't bargain for a $25 million defamation lawsuit when he wrote that a Miami developer had gone bankrupt decades ago.

CNN's iReport will be wide open to citizen's news submissions, allowing users to post whatever content they choose.

The Twin Cities Daily Planet is inviting citizen journalists to workshops, asking them to "stop by with your story and share it with others, get comments and editing help, or talk through a story idea that you haven't quite gotten down on paper".

The prospects for user-created content, once thought possibly central to the next era of journalism, for now appear more limited, even among "citizen" sites and blogs. News people report the most promising parts of citizen input currently are new ideas, sources, comments and to some extent pictures and video. But citizens posting news content has proven less valuable, with too little that is new or verifiable. (It may thrive at smaller outlets with fewer resources.) And the skepticism is not restricted to the traditional mainstream media or "MSM." The array of citizen-produced news and blog sites is reaching a meaningful level. But a study of citizen media contained in this report finds most of these sites do not let outsiders do more than comment on the site's own material, the same as most traditional news sites. Few allow the posting of news, information, community events or even letters to the editors. And blog sites are even more restricted. In short, rather than rejecting the "gatekeeper" role of traditional journalism, for now citizen journalists and bloggers appear for now to be recreating it in other places.

Whatever the traditional definition of "news" might be, it can seem far from what fills the headlines at some of the Web's more popular news sites

Weary of his job as an urban planner for the city of Portland, Ore., Sloan Schang dreamed of making a living as a writer. How, exactly, he wasn't sure. But he quit his job, sold his house and, with the proceeds, some savings and his girlfriend, set off on a trip that took him to Asia, Europe and across much of the United States. Today, not two years later, Schang, 32, is a published travel writer with a busy schedule of decently paid freelance gigs. "It's worked out well. I don't really plan to go back to urban planning," he says.

A decade ago Schang's transition almost certainly would have been more difficult. But there are more opportunities than ever for aspiring writers to get published. Schang credits his breaking into the travel writing business to 8020 Publishing, a San Francisco-based magazine publisher with a unique twist on the conventional model: its paper pages are filled entirely with content submitted by readers through its Web site.

As part of the ongoing collective research project on Congresspedia to track the "superdelegates" who may decide the Democratic nominee for president, our partners at the Huffington Post have enlisted hundreds of citizens to research some of the more obscure party officials in th …

The 100-year-old National Press Club has extended membership invitations to Helium's five-star writers. Qualify and you can apply to the news club that the nation's most notable journalists, government officials and top news sources call home.

This partnership recognizes the value of citizen journalism and helps spread awareness of its importance to the new media landscape. This is the first time in the National Press Club's history that it has reached out to a non-traditional news outlet.

Newsvine is dedicated to well-researched, thought out, and written articles, and meaningful discussion. We pride ourselves on the quality of our writing and discussions. Newsvine has also seen many groundbreaking writers such as Zaki, who reported on various topics on site in Afghanistan, and Rob Ballew, who is providing insight into the war in Iraq as a U.S. soldier.

Better than the Pros

The tragic Virginia Tech shootings of April, 2007 was covered quickly by the mainstream media. Citizen journalists, though, broke the story before even "real" journalists could. I wrote in May:

Indeed, Newsvine's own member Killfile offered some of the best reporting done throughout the entire event. First posting his article at 10 A.M. east coast time, Killfile provided updates as they happened on the ground, offering a much more concise and detailed timeline of events. While the major news outlets were scrambling to provide information, and in the process providing jumbled and sometimes contradictory information, Killfile gave Newsvine users clear details of the unfolding crisis, including copies of the emails sent out, and details, such as the fact that students were jumping out of windows to escape the shooter, that the major news outlets only provided afterward.

Killfile's reporting is significant because his reporting not only conglomerated reports from major news outlets, but provided unknown details and a much more organized timeline of events than the media managed to do. In effect, Killfile's actions proved that citizen journalism can provide better reporting than the major news outlets themselves, giving more timely and accurate information.

Perhaps partially due to Killfile's own unique ability to write coherently and briefly, in the chaotic first few hours of the events, he managed not only to break the news first, but also to provide details the professionals took hours to uncover and provide and do it all in a much more organized manner. But this also reflects an advantage citizen journalists have, and that is background knowledge and access. Killfile was able to provide better coverage because he was familiar with the Virginia Tech campus, knew people that were on campus, and had access to their email announcements.

Professional journalists and news services do not usually have this same background or access, and must utilize contacts to compensate for it. Finding those contacts when a story is breaking and getting information takes time, and sometimes it is not possible at all. Citizen journalists in the area of breaking news, or even doing research into longstanding stories, hold the advantage here.

Not Completely

While citizen journalists have the advantage of background knowledge and access in a localized area, professional journalists have wide-ranging access and established networks (or "wire services"). Journalists, because they work for established institutions, can get interviews, both on and off the record, with fortune 100 business executives, heads of state, and other important figures, which provide invaluable insight into breaking and old news stories. Moreover, due to the power of said institutions, they can also force organizations, both private and public, to relinquish documents.

These two aspects of professional journalism are indispensable in fulfilling one of journalism's core functions: checking established public and private power structures. They publish scathing tell-all stories about government corruption, or businesses abusing labor, pulling the veil away for all to see.

Without this kind of access and pull, organizations would essentially be free to violate public trust and law in pursuit of personal and unsavory desires. Established journalism, then, keeps organizations within the legal and social norms of society, and insure that companies are subject to market forces. (That is, journalists reveal to the public both the good and bad that companies are doing, and allow consumers to make a decision from there.)

Without a radical shift in how society functions, where individuals could suddenly hold as much influence as large news companies, citizen journalism simply cannot provide this function. Citizen journalism, though, does complement professional journalism here in a powerful way.

Newsvine, Hybrid

On Newsvine, we do not just write our own articles. We also "seed," or post links to other news articles across the web, so we can begin discussion here in our community. Exponentially more articles are submitted here in a day than we could read in a week, and at least a good portion of them are relevant and worth reading. In this way, we are making our community, and many more readers, more well-informed than any of us could become individually. This is the power of social networks.

But, as the founders of Newsvine recognize, this cannot happen without professional journalists doing their job and writing in-depth, well researched articles, as well as breaking news. It must be recognized that citizen journalism cannot replace professional journalism. Rather, it should complement it.

Newsvine provides an excellent model for the future of news. To "get smarter," citizen journalists must not work against professional journalists, but rather in concert with them. That is the only way news will become more accurate, timely and detailed, while still retaining the benefits that traditional journalism offers.

There is another benefit, too. A large fear as we delve deeper into the twenty-first century is that large, conglomerate news companies, such as News Corp., will lessen competition in the news industry, and utilize their news companies as propaganda arms for their other ventures.

The inclusion of citizen journalists, though, in the process of finding, publishing and propagating news, and thus making news not just a one-way process but rather a relationship, can decrease the risk of this threat both because citizen journalists, because of their decentralized nature, are almost impossible to centrally control, and instances of censorship or biases implemented by corporate managers will spread almost instantly across the many social news communities across the web, creating a firestorm of criticism.

Newsvine and MSNBC.com are pioneering the future of news in this regard. While Newsvine is an independent entity, the two companies are finding ways to complement each other and create value not only for Newsvine and MSNBC.com, but most importantly, the Newsvine community. Although this is just in its infancy, the results thus far have been excellent. MSNBC features Newsvine articles throughout its website, and has even brought Killfile and Viki on live TV to comment on the 2008 election; and even more interestingly, utilizing Newsvine's new Nightly News feature where news clips are posted on Newsvine.com so we can discuss them, have begun a dialogue between Newsvine users and Brian Williams.

While the partnership so far has been great, there are tough questions. The most pressing is how do we design a system for featuring citizen-generated news articles on the MNSBC.com website efficiently while still picking the best articles? Should they be contained in a separate, clearly labeled section for user-generated content, or should they be displayed right along side the MSNBC.com staff's work? How can MSNBC journalists and Newsvine contributors collaborate in a meaningful way, rather than just being another content stream?

I have some ideas, and I will save those for another article. But I would like to hear from you all: what do you think?

According to Ground Reports, 2008 will be the year citizen journalism evolves, after having cemented its establishment in 2007. Leaders such as Newsvine, NowPublic, Orato and Digital Journal offer many similar features: proprietary content submission tools, community ratings, and even some occasional revenue share. But it's "how these players break out of the pack in the coming year (that) will determine everything."

At Davos, Jeff Jarvis is running with a crowd of journalists who are all using mobile technology to capture the event. It's a historic moment for journalism, undoubtedly the most mobile-tech-covered event ever.

ScribbleSheet launched in September as an easy, open platform for people with an opinion that they want to share. Inspired by the discussion around citizen journalism, the London-based founders have funded the site with their own money because they think the everyone should have a platform for their own, unmediated voice.

As a part of Newsvine Assignment Desk, we'll eventually introduce a feature that will call for Newsvine members in specific locations and/or with ties to current events to submit articles and other contributions to us. In the meantime, I plan to wing it by posting an article from time to time, asking for input from Newsviners on the ground in specific areas.

Starting things off, I'm currently looking for:

- Anyone with specific information or who can give us on the ground correspondence from Iowa, leading up to next week's caucus there.

- A Newsvine user who is on the ground (or has ties to someone on the ground) in Pakistan, who can give us insight into the turmoil and events surrounding the assassination of Banazir Bhutto.

The intent is to feature these Newsvine contributions on msnbc.com. If you fit the bill, please email me directly and tell me briefly what you've got (or what you're willing to contribute).

When we roll out the new user profile pages, you'll be able to tell us more about you - including your location and whether or not you're interested in being contacted in the event that there is a breaking news event in your area.

Once we support video submissions, we'll be happy to take your submissions caught on camera. In the meantime, if you haven't already, please take a look at msnbc's First Person. You can already submit video, photos and other types of contributions directly to msnbc.com. If doing so, please just include a short note, telling them that you're a Newsvine user and provide them your Newsvine domain so that they can give you attribution appropriately.

Greetings and Happy Holidays to everyone, I hope you are having a good few weeks and aren't stuck at work the whole time like I have been.

I'm here to introduce Newsvine's newest group: Newsvine Election Coverage.

"But Stacy", you may say, "Aren't there already a few groups dedicated to this subject?" To which, after I gave you a meaningful, 'how-dare-you-question-me' glare, I would respond yes. However, the goal that I have for this group is different. What we are looking for is a citizen journalist collaborative effort on Newsvine, so that anyone navigating our site can follow this group and know that they will be kept up to date with our personalized coverage of the candidates and issues that are important to them.

This is a citizen journalism group, which means that only original articles will be allowed, no seeds. The subject matter is fairly open, if it has to do with the upcoming election, it works, whether it be hard-hitting journalism, random observations, candidate profiles, interviews, or humor. The only actual requirement is that it comes straight from the minds of our brilliant community, this is Newsvine's guide to the elections, not CNN's or Fox's guide. My hopes is that this group will be the one-stop-citizen-journalism-shop for all things election related on Newsvine, give readers an alternative to the mainstream media coverage, and showcase some of our talented writers here.

As an example of what this group will be used for, The 2008 RNC collaboration will be putting together coverage of the 2008 Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities this year, covering the local events as they unfold.

We are looking for political writers to join and contribute to this group. This group is not meant to be overly partisan, or to push a particular agenda - My hope is that it will represent all sides of the political spectrum. Instead, what we are looking for is good, thoughtful, personalized coverage of the 2008 election and everything leading up to it.

Interested? Just follow this link and send me a group request!

In my earlier post in this series: "Localizing", I discussed how you can put a new angle on a national topic by investigating what that issue's impacts might be in your town, city or region.

The reverse holds equally true. Very often, we see someone or something in our own backyard that beautifully illustrates a larger economic, national or societal issue. That's what's behind the technique I call "nationalizing", which is simply describing a slice of everyday life and linking it back into a broader context.

Its applicability to journalism notwithstanding, the truly great masters of this technique are politicians. Particularly at a national level, rarely does an election go by without a politician introducing a sweet old lady at a fundraiser, saying something like:

"Here's the lovely Mrs. Smith, a widow from my opponent's own congressional district. She lives on a fixed income with her two dogs in assisted housing. And because of my opponent's stand against tax cuts for the elderly, she bears the same tax burden as Warren Buffet."

I exaggerate. But only a little. And the example effectively illustrates the way in which the politically adept can move from a specific and local example to a national issue with which everyone can resonate. This technique is powerful in journalistic terms for the same reason it works in the political arena. It's practically unparalleled in its ability to put a human face on an abstract issue. While you might not care much about the specific issue of tax cuts for the elderly, it's hard for anyone to resist kindly old Mrs Smith, with her white hair and cashmere sweater.

I'll illustrate another example using the scenario I described in my earlier article about localizing, and put the reverse spin on it (note that except for the link, I'm making all this up as an example), as follows:

The article lede, and the first two or three paragraphs would describe the plight of Jonathan D. Owe, a machinist from the Ford plant on the outskirts of the town in which I live. He's worked on the third shift at that plant for six years, but in September, in response to decreased demand for the minivan his plant builds, the third shift was eliminated at that plant, throwing him out of work. Now it's Christmas, and he's not sure how he's going to by presents for his kids, or even if he can keep his house.

Kanjay Singh feels the pinch, too. He manages the Zellers in the mall not far from the Talbotville plant, and business is down 32% over two years ago. He thinks he may have to lay people off if he doesn't have record Christmas sales.

Mayor Cliff Barnes says that the housing boom we've seen over the last five years is at an end, and if the economy doesn't pick up soon, local taxes may have to go up.

But there may be good news on the horizon. After nearly 18 months of inaction in the face of a pressure on the manufacturing sector, an overly strong U.S. dollar and flattening demand for auto parts from our major customers in Michigan, the provincial government is finally contemplating tax cuts to help the manufacturing sector.

Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove applauded the action, but says it is too little, too late.

"The problem has to be addressed at the national level," he said. "As long as Japanese automobiles can be sold in North America while they don't open their markets to fair competition from our auto workers -- the most productive in the world -- we will see this type of economic hardship."

And that's all there is to it. It's the same article we talked about earlier, but by putting a different spin on it -- a completely reverse spin -- we have a fresh new perspective.

When I first joined NewAssignment one of the citizen journalism sites that caught my eye was Orato. They had a unique angle - bring the personal voice! Too much of citizen journalism relies on the citizen journalist trying to do more than they need to or even should. I don't turn to citizen journalism because I think they are more professional or thorough - citizen journalisms' strength is that anyone can do it - and if you are of the mindset that you can learn something from anyone - then it has obvious benefits. The problem is getting it to be unfiltered. That's what Orato has done very well: personal stories from everyday people.

In an article titled Fast Forward to MSNBC, Oldfogey mentioned the need to "make sure I keep my ears, my eyes and my mind open to possible new material for Newsvine".

Newsvine hereby recognizes the excellent contributions by U.S. Army soldier Rob Ballew, from the front lines of Iraq. Not only is Rob putting his life on the line for his country and for the Iraqi people day in and day out, he has also used his Newsvine column to document his experiences in Iraq. Ballew has consistently provided a refreshing view of life from a soldier's point of view, unfiltered and straight up. An Iraqi Freedom Vet and a National Guardsman, Rob puts his money where his mouth is by choosing to serve a second tour in Iraq when offered the choice to stay home and to watch the war from his living room. His dedication and service reflects that of thousands of other soldiers currently deployed to the Middle East - yet Rob has also taken the time to candidly write to the Newsvine community about his experiences as a soldier. Conflicted and sometimes even regretful, always courageous, humble, optimistic and steadfast - Rob shows us the human side of the conflict that is never captured by statistics and analysis by people at arm's length from the battlefield.

We look forward to hearing more reports from Rob Ballew, and the Newsvine Team hopes for his continued good health and safety. Congratulations, Rob - for receiving Newsvine's highest distinction, the Random Act of Vineness award.

We would also like to thank Jim Dent and the other Newsviners who made Rob's continuing reports from Iraq possible by chipping in and working together to purchase and deliver a laptop computer to our guy on the front lines. Only a Community like ours could pull something like this off. Hats off to all of you.

After I wrote a post describing and defining the various acts of citizen journalism, something I think the industry still needs to do for itself, I was contacted by Martin Stabe (the Romenesko of England) to boil the post down to be published in the Press Gazette.

Since the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 and the 7 July bombings seven months later, the ubiquity of cameraphones has frequently made readers' images the first source of information about major events – particularly disasters.

Around that time, the phrase "citizen journalist" entered the lexicon. The jury is out on whether that term will stick – but if you take it to mean more audience involvement in making the news, it is more relevant now than ever. That's why Press Gazette is again hosting the Citizen Journalism Awards.

CNN-IBN launched 'The Citizen Journalist Show: Be the Change' on November 17. The eight-episode series will air on Saturdays at 9.30 pm, with a repeat on Sundays at 5.30 pm. The show is an attempt to celebrate the spirit of civic activism and take user-generated content to a new level.

Charleston, SC (PRWEB) November 18, 2007 -- Media bias is rarely more evident than during election season, including the current lead-up to the presidential primaries. Seekers of unbiased news often must spend their time browsing several media takes on the same story to get the full picture. The new online service, America Talks Back, aims to give readers a voice in holding the media accountable for their actions and biases, while also offering a platform where citizen journalists can contribute their own news which they feel is being neglected by major media outlets.

I'll freely admit that It's highly unlikely that a professional journalist would be reading a Newsvine column for story ideas. Especially mine, given that I don't even rate the Newsvine leaderboard. It's flattering to fantasize that's the case, but more likely he and I arrived at these ideas independently, and at around the same time due to their topical nature.

But I have to say that I was struck by similarities in the title and premise of the recent op-ed piece "Anonymity vs. responsibility: Balancing political freedom with journalistic credibility in the Age of Blogging", published in the San Francisco Chronicle by lawyer and journalist Peter Scheer, and my own original Newsvine article, "MSNBC/Newsvine and Citizen Journalism: Anonymity vs. Accountability", published 10/24/2007.

Compare this statement by Mr. Scheer:

"The promiscuous use of anonymity breeds distrust. Readers react to anonymous online postings with the same skepticism that they have for newspaper articles that rely unnecessarily on unnamed sources. They wonder if the anonymous blogger is a paid shill, or has some other conflict of interest"

with this from my article:

"This point was driven home by Pamela Drew's recent outing of a Monsanto PR schill, "Why was Monsanto's PR Man Violating Newsvine CoH, Again?" Not only is it too easy for 'Viners to be dismissed as not being credible sources by not taking ownership of their writing, it's too easy for obvious conflict of interests to be obfuscated through use of a pseudonym."

Or this statement:

"These blogs, however, will not be taken seriously if their authors persist in hiding their identities. Bloggers must take responsibility for what they write."

vs. mine:

"If we are to be taken seriously in challenging the main stream media as a viable and trusted source of information, taking on real-world ownership and accountability for our opinions and commentary is going to be a necessary step."

He also touches on several ideas that are covered in the ensuing discussion, including how anonymity tends to erode civil discourse and foster personal attacks (admittedly not a new idea), and the need for anonymity in historical terms" in the venerable tradition of the Federalist Papers", a point touched on by Aine MacDermot when she referenced the use of a pseudonym by Ben Franklin in comment #9.6.

And significantly, he makes this statement:

"Similarly, there are lessons here for newspapers and other media outlets that, in their rush to convert sleepy Web sites into Web 2.0 engines of economic growth, turn over large sections of their online real estate to readers who post anonymously."

Sound like anyone familiar? Judge for yourself.

They say turnabout is fair play, and I'm sure that journalists occasionally feel ripped off by bloggers who borrow heavily from their stories and ideas. Eric Engberg, a former CBS News correspondent in Washington, has said that "the chances of the bloggers replacing mainstream journalism are about as good as the parasite replacing the dog it fastens on."

Regardless of whether Mr. Scheer ever laid eyes on my article, I take a certain amount of pride in the fact that I came up with these same ideas, published to Newsvine and read, voted, and commented on by many of my peers nearly a month before his article was published in a major newspaper. Anonymous or not, the ideas presented in my article are just as vaild as those in his.

Professional journalists no longer have the stage to all to themselves, as they once did. Citizen Journalism is here, and it competing for the attention of the reader in the marketplace of ideas. Jim Kennedy, Director of Strategic Planning at the AP, has this to say about Citizen Journalism:

"The professionals will still be on the big stories, and there will be a value to that and to editors and to setting the agenda of what the top stories are. But there will be this whole new visibility of other things, a Long Tail of news that's impossible to capture now with what we've developed as mainstream tools, so we need to develop new tools and new networks to expand our reach."

The Long Tail is is a theory introduced by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail.

So I ask you, Mr. Scheer, if you are reading this...who's got a hold of the Long Tail now?

The Internet is crawling with anonymous communications. Like digital kudzu, they spread from spam e-mail to message board postings to entire blogs and Web sites. For all but a few, there is no discernible need or reason for anonymity. Writers enjoy the freedom that comes with anonymity, forgetting their obligations to their audience. First Amendment protection for anonymous speech has become, on the Internet, license to avoid having to take responsibility for what one writes.

Book bloggers vs. magazine book reviewers, newspaper gossip writers vs. gossip websites--we could make an endless list of the new media conflicts between print reporters and the online communities that love their beats.

My idea was to run parallel experiments to see whether "beat reporting with a social network" is a viable pro-am method in journalism— or just an attractive concept.

each infrastructure enabled ordinary people who were paying attention to their country, their community or their topic to commit acts of journalism.

Smart news organizations are beginning to take some cues from these media developments. They are concluding it's time for a new core mission, one that repositions the newspaper in the community and revisits knee-jerk practices.

That mission calls for building an overarching local "info-structure," one created to support new definitions of "news," new participants in content creation and interaction, and new pathways for news and information.

Recently I've had the pleasure of meeting several journalists, some of them staff writers for papers and one or two freelancers who do various types of reporting. While describing Newsvine to them, I mentioned that many Newsviners are actually professionally employed as either writers or journalists. I think that this is surprising to many people in the journalism business. Our discussion seemed to circle around the motivations behind those who participate on Newsvine. If you are, or have been employed as a professional writer or journalist - why do you use Newsvine?

Another interesting observation: we have many great contributors who have no formal training in journalism or writing. Yet, I believe that I would be largely unable to differentiate between strong contributors who have a professional background and those who don't, based on reading their columns alone. In many cases, I've been surprised to discover that one person has a long history in the field, yet someone else has none at all.

Bloggers and journalists have partnered to launch a new citizen journalism venture for the Scandinavian region, iNorden.org.

The English version is here.

As news organizations slash budgets and scale back bureaus, CNN is expanding—except not in real life.

In the week of Nov. 5, the news giant is set to open a news-gathering outpost in Second Life. And unlike news service Reuters, which embedded a real reporter in the online virtual world last year, CNN will rely on Second Life "residents" to do all the legwork.

Here's a direct link to the video of Killfile's interview on MSNBC.

From dramatic cell phone camera images of flames as they choked off neighborhood escape routes to chilling online narratives of evacuation, citizen journalists covering the wildfires in California this week gave new meaning to the concept of reporting a natural disaster from the  …

The UpTake: Knocking down the barriers to Video Citizen Journalism

One by one the barriers to creating your own mass media have been coming down. First blogs let anyone publish their own newspaper, then podcasts let anyone publish their own radio show, now online videos let anyone put out a TV show…if you have the equipment and technical know how.

The Video class for Citizen Journalists is on Saturday October 27, 2007 at the Galaxie Library in Apple Valley, Minnesota, 11am to 3pm.

Free registration for the class here.

Anyone talking to media knows that telling a journalist something "off the record" means you're telling them so they know it. It's not going to stay secret. But it also clearly means that the comments aren't to be used a primary source. The point of "off the record" is to steer a journalist the right way so they can dig in deeper and get the real story from a real source, on the record. TechCrunch, though, just reports stuff "off the record" directly. Remember that next time you're being chummy at a party with Arrington.

Some great points made here -- but I do think the idea that "bloggers = journalists" is primarily pushed by people who want to point out that bloggers are not journalists.

I recall that a few of the rumor sites wanted to qualify as journalists, mostly for shield law protection, but I believe that was in an effort to continue being bad journalists, usually as a result of using off-the-record sources.

I don't think most bloggers (or even most citizen journalists) would consider themselves to be journalists -- nor do I think most would want to fit into that category.

In other words, the whole "bloggers are not journalists" debate tends to be fought on one side (journalists), and ignored on the other (bloggers).

Via Daring Fireball.

As October marks my one year anniversary on Newsvine, I have decided to get serious and finally write some articles, the first (How Private Developers Plan to Profit from a 90-Year Old Lake Michigan Park Donated "For the Children") of which was posted yesterday.

The brand new PBS website MediaShift Idea Lab has been chugging out smart ideas for citizen journalists. This suggestion from J.D. Lasica is full of great links...

"Lots of free great applications and plug-ins are available at download.com, pcmag, tucows pc world. Instead of manging your project with Microsoft Project ($400), an inexpensive alternative is Basecamp, free for one project."

Do we have a duty, as writers, journalists, or citizen journalists, to read the print newspaper every day? Some people think the new media shift has turned all of us into thoughtless, uninformed citizens.

Responding to a Poynter Institute article entitled "Your Duty to Read the Paper," Steve Yelvington begs to differ:
"Quit blaming the Internet. There's nothing wrong with paper. It's your journalism that isn't relevant ... I've previously described how newspapers don't have an online revenue problem, but rather an online audience problem. Just to put a point on it: I spent today with yet another newspaper new-media director whose biggest problem is sold-out ad inventory. The site needs people and pageviews."

A news agenda formulated by citizens would be radically different from that put together by journalists.

That is the conclusion of a US study which compared what made the headlines in the mainstream media with that of three diverse user-driven news sources.

The study - conducted by a wing of the US Pew Research centre - compared stories over seven days.

Its results will make interesting reading for news editors as well as the new breed of citizen journalists.

The report - released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism - took a snapshot of news stories from the last week in June 2007.

OhmyNews relies on the contributions of over 60,000 citizen reporters worldwide, and OhmyNews International has over 3,000 global citizen reporters writing stories in English from 100 countries. Working to support the citizen journalists are 90 staff members -- approximately 60 editorial staff and 30 tech and administrative.

One of the concerns often voiced about citizen journalism is that it does not meet the standards of professional journalism. But since the start of OMN in 2000, all citizen reporters have been required to abide by a strict Code of Ethics and Reporter's Agreement:

Newspaper reporters in Nigeria frequently demand payments just to turn up to press conferences. The rot in the business runs so deep it's almost impossible to tell what is fact, as a new generation of web-based "citizen journalists" is revealing.

Omoyele Sowore, a representative of the US and UK-based website Saharareporters.com, tells why they started the website early last year. "It was just too shameful. You would notice obvious flaws in interviews conducted by major newspapers; they are usually devoid of the hard questions. It looked as if the big men write out their own interview questions, answer them and pass them on to the newspapers, radio and TV stations. And it was clear that journalists had become caught up in the rat race for illegitimate wealth."

There's still time to apply for a ground-breaking full-time PhD studentship run jointly by Sky News and City University. It offers a unique opportunity to study citizen journalism and its relationship to a mainstream news outlet.

According to the prospectus, the student will spend his/her first year working closely with Sky News on an innovative project to recruit several hundred "citizen journalists" to report on the next UK general election campaign.

The student will help to recruit suitable contributors, mentor them and guide them in creating the right sort of content, and manage their contributions. The role therefore requires editorial initiative, a nose for news, an understanding of what makes compelling online content and familiarity with the social networking community.

After more than 10 years of newspapers slowly migrating to the Web, most have embraced the medium as their future, showing they can break news, provide audio and video extras, and give readers more space to react and rebut than ever before. Successes are many, ranging from exclusive online interviews to sourcing details that give readers more complete information than any daily could have provided just a few years ago. Even the Pulitzer Prizes are giving props to Web-based offerings.

But with those accomplishments and expansions have come no shortage of starts and stops, bumps, flops, and sometimes outright debacles. We all remember the Los Angeles Times' "Wikipedia" experiment with its reader-altered editorials and the uproar over The Washington Post hiring a conservative blogger -- with plagiarism offenses in his past -- in the name of balance. In a decade-plus of Web exploration, nearly every daily has felt the growing pains that any new news tool requires.

A citizen journalism Web site that depends entirely on unsolicited articles has a problem that would terrify the staff of mainstream newspapers.

The Web site's content on any given day relies on what is happening in the lives of its registered citizen reporters.

A significant event may go uncovered because the only registered citizen reporter in the area is out of town. A seasonal period such as the beginning of the academic year, or a religious holiday, draws reporters away from their computers, resulting in a slow down of content. Or at times content may become unbalanced because too many reporters write about one type of issue and put off potential contributors who don't share their interests.

Another issue facing citizen journalism Web sites is the search for a stable business model.

Mainstream newspapers found their business model several centuries ago. In early 18th-century London some newspapers devoted over half of their pages to advertising. Since then advertisers have funded many newspapers that would not survive on the cover price alone.

This business model seems to be the most reliable there is, so why not use it for citizen journalism?

Sky News is planning to recruit "several hundred" citizen journalists to provide coverage of the next general election.

The rolling news channel hopes to expand its citizen journalism output with the help of City University.

It's time to enter this year's Knight News Challenge, which awards big money for innovative ideas using digital experiments to transform community news.

The contest is run by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Last year's winners won awards ranging from $15K to $5 million.

For a variety of reasons I try to stay out of the debates over blogs as such, what they're good or bad at and the rest. But this morning I was alerted to an opinion column in the Los Angeles Times by Michael Skube, a journalism professor at Elon University. The sum of the piece is that the blogosphere is as rife with disputation as it is thin on information, or more specifically, reporting, writing that demands "time, thorough fact-checking and verification and, most of all, perseverance."

So far so good, but:

Now, whether we do any quality reporting at TPM is a matter of opinion. And everyone is entitled to theirs. So against my better judgment, I sent Skube an email telling him that I found it hard to believe he was very familiar with TPM if he was including us as examples in a column about the dearth of original reporting in the blogosphere.

Now, I get criticized plenty. And that's fair since I do plenty of criticizing. And I wouldn't raise any of this here if it weren't for what came up in Skube's response.

Not long after I wrote I got a reply: "I didn't put your name into the piece and haven't spent any time on your site. So to that extent I'm happy to give you benefit of the doubt ..."

Sigh.

Via Daring Fireball

Citizen journalism is a good thing, but it shouldn't be viewed as the future of journalism, a substitute for professional reporting by established media. Citizen journalism should augment media coverage, not replace it.

With today's technology, and traditional media's new-found appetite for greater interaction with its readers, viewers and listeners, there's never been a better time to start contributing. Here's your step-by-step guide to the ins and outs of citizen reporting.

The next generation of journalists must understand how a little bit of video can supercharge a piece of reporting.

Last week, the proposed Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, H.R. 2102, was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee.

The legislation, if enacted, would create a federal privilege for journalists to protect their confidential sources, in the face of courts' or prosecutors' demands that they testify about (or otherwise disclose) the source's identity, or face jail.

Another great piece by my favorite media critic, Jay Rosen

The YearlyKos convention was a huge affirmation of blogger culture, and there are many personal accounts of it posted all over the Web. But as the event winds down, we wanted to recount for you one small scene we witnessed here that served as a reminder, that even as the netroots celebrates its growth and success, sometimes people have to be escorted onto the Web one at a time.

The scene took place Saturday morning in the glassy lobby of McCormick Place, where a non-initiate in the blogging world encountered an established Webby.

Nancy Robinson, 46, is a gun-control advocate from Boston. Andrew Rasiej, 49, from New York, is the co-founder of techPresident.com, which covers how technology is affecting the presidential race. We were sitting between them as their conversation unfolded.

A shiny new version of the internet, dubbed Web 2.0 by US publisher Tim O'Reilly in 2004, really was going to change everything. With mass broadband access to the internet, the dream of a fully networked, always connected society was finally going to be realised.

Media, information, knowledge, content, audience, author: all were going to be democratised by Web 2.0. But democratisation, despite its lofty idealisation, is undermining truth, souring civic discourse and belittling expertise, experience and talent. It is threatening the future of our cultural institutions.

I call it the great seduction. The Web 2.0 revolution has peddled the promise of bringing more truth to more people: more depth of information, more global perspective, more unbiased opinion from dispassionate observers. But this is all a smokescreen.

What the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment. The information business is being transformed by the internet into the sheer noise of one hundred million bloggers all simultaneously talking about themselves.

The financing is led by Rho Ventures in the United States and Canada.

After taking part in the International Citizen Reporter's Forum held in June at Seoul, thanks to the invitation by OhmyNews, I came back feeling strong about the concept of citizen journalism. During the two days of forum where the nitty-gritty of citizen journalism was discussed in threadbare gave me a new perspective about the role of citizen journalism.

Now when I look back at the forum in retrospective it not only made me think of my role as citizen journalism but also propelled me to look at the new emerging trends in global citizen journalism.

I think the concept and importance of citizen journalism is gaining wide recognition among global mainstream media and satellite television. At least here in India there is a realization among the television channels and the main stream print media of the growing importance of the role of citizen journalist.