by Marilyn De Angelis Pennell

Created on: June 09, 2008   Last Updated: May 22, 2012

The image of an army of citizens toting cameras and notebooks, pursuing politicians and seeking out corruption is not what comes to mind when I think of citizen journalism. But what I think and what you think may be two totally different things.

Before we can debate whether or not citizen journalists are more "trustworthy" than professional journalists, we need to first define what citizen journalism is and what it isn't. And that is not an easy task.

The Poynter Institute, an esteemed center for journalism excellence in Florida, published a recent online piece by journalist Steve Outing that contends that citizen journalism has "eleven layers", including user comments; citizen blogs; "Wiki journalism", where citizens are the sole writers and editors and stand alone news websites written and published entirely by citizens.

Outing, however, says that he has yet to encounter news organizations where professional and citizen journalists work side by side, with equivalent resources, demands and responsibilities. But he also says that news organizations want to understand citizen journalism better and are seeking to ways to incorporate citizen voices into
Journalism.

According to Outing ".. there is plenty of confusion about citizen journalism. What exactly is it? Is this something that's going to be essential to the future prosperity of news companies?"

The problem is that there is not one way to "do" citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is evolving. The revolution in convergent digital media technologies, media deregulation and the rise of the Internet and Web have opened up journalism and media to citizens in new and exciting ways.

Now, regular folks can communicate with a worldwide audience with the click of a mouse by submitting a video online, writing a blog, taking photos with a camera phone and uploading them and generally participating more fully in the public debate. This is all good. In fact it has re-energized media and journalism and made them more democratic, open and lively.

But to imply that there is one form of citizen journalism and purport that people who participate in it are "more trustworthy" is to miss the point. Citizen journalism and professional journalism complement each other but they are not the same enterprise. Each kind of journalism has its place and value. But citizen journalism is not inherently more trustworthy than professional print, broadcast or online journalism.

Why? In the interests of full disclosure, I must say that I

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