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Professional journalists have the same obligations as professional writers first off. They have to maintain journalistic integrity, be fair and impartial, and live up to the standards that their employers set for them. Citizen journalists, whether they be bloggers, op-ed columnists for other websites, vloggers or whatever do not have to live up to those standards.

Now it isn't that websites like Helium, Associated Content or others that are have their own editors and staff are not asking citizen journalists to be professional and maintain journalistic integrity. But the lines are often blurred between a citizen journalist's intentions to tell the truth as opposed to his need to rant about what upsets him.

The whole mystique behind blogging to begin with is that anyone can write that great op-ed column and that the playing field is leveled and the whole process is opened up. It's similar to reading that local newspaper in your city that has a niche like alternative lifestyles or ethnic and minority interests. You expect to find an editorial slant as well as typographical and grammatical errors. The paper is cheap or free in some cases, there are more ads and the experience isn't what you would expect with the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal.

If your day job is that of a writer and it isn't just a nice past time or hobby of yours you are busy trying to meet deadlines, trying to find that balance between your own voice and what your editor wants. You realize that it isn't your publication but a collective effort of all of the writers there. You also realize the damage to the publications reputation that can come about if you start to embellish and aren't thorough in checking the legitimacy of all of your sources.

It's great that we do have citizen journalism that is free of the political and monetary constraints of a regular publication. Citizen journalists do not have to loose sleep over whether or not their advertisers will pull out as often advertisements about the same corporations they're talking about will feature next to the story regardless of the tone of the article. If a citizen journalist wants to increase page views or get more "hits", he'll find a way to talk about the story better than his competition.

But the more writing becomes a serious part of what you do for a living the less experimental your work becomes. You stop talking about stuff that no one other than yourself cares about. You start finding a way to truly market what you have to offer. But you have to be careful because when it comes to journalism popularity as a blogger or freelance writer may mean you are more of a taste maker than a fair reporter. It may mean that you are entertaining everyone but delivering articles that do not stand the test of time and are only as good for that moment in which they were written. So people move on when they find someone else that is better at what they do. At least with professional journalism that assessment has already been made of you and the audience can feel a bit better about hearing the news from you through this publication than they may if you were on your own.

Learn more about this author, Christopher Kendalls.
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