Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism is cited as being the biggest threat to legacy media by people who are, apparently, in the know. The main example cited used is the video of Neda Saltani, who was shot dead by police during the protests in Iran last year.

The question I ask is, are video's like this examples of citizen journalism?

If a news organisation comes across someone who has access to files relating to government corruption, or pictures or videos of police brutality, are they citizen journalists? Or, are they what is traditionally known as sources?

As David Simon notes, "you do not – in my city -- run into bloggers or so-called citizen journalists at City Hall, or in the courthouse hallways or at the bars and union halls where police officers gather. You do not see them consistently nurturing and then pressing sources."

Real citizen journalism is rare and often of questionable quality. There are some exceptions; The Huffington Post is the largest, and most influential, but some smaller organisations are doing a good job.

The Uptake did a great job of covering the Republican Party's National Convention in Minnesota in 2008, as well as the marathon recount after recount in the Senate race in 2009 (eventually won by (former?) comedian Al Franken.

Unlike most citizen journalism organisations however, The Uptake uses trained, professional journalists in conjunction with trained amateur journalists.

It's not just a group of bloggers sitting around talking about whatever they feel like and stealing content from news sites without attribution.

But while The Uptake do a good job, what happens when the GOP's convention is in a different state the next time? Will there be an Uptake in every town and city around the world, dedicated to reporting the truth and holding those in power to account?

Can citizen journalism really fill the hole left by the death of 'legacy journalism', should that transpire? I'm not convinced. Yet.