Where do we draw the line?

One of the main concepts emerging from the transition to a digital news environment is the idea of citizen journalism. Citizen journalism, of course, being the members of a community playing a role in the process of, ultimately, spreading news. In his article, The 11 layers of Citizen Journalism, Steve Outing says that "citizen journalism isn't one simple concept that can be applied universally by all news organizations," rather, it is more complex and has many potential variations.

On the whole, citizen journalism is a great concept. Who knows the community better than the residents themselves? Although, there is a responsibility that comes with being a "citizen journalist" and therefore, important to have boundaries for those who decide to contribute to the news. If news organizations that were accepting contributions from citizen contributers simply let those contributions go unedited, there would more than likely be inappropriate or unnecessary content getting published.

Outing's sixth "layer" would be a great way to allow citizens to contribute to the news while still maintaining the journalistic aspect. He suggests creating a news-oriented website where citizens can submit pretty much whatever they want and the site's editor performs modest editing in order to maintain some sort of integrity. It would then be the job of those editors to guide citizen contributers into making submissions worth publishing and educating them about what's useful to the community, eliminating all of the unnecessary "fluff."

With many of these sites aimed at providing news from actual residents of that particular community rather than professional journalists, there are going to be obstacles. This is why it is important for there to be some kind of editor who monitors submissions allowing only for quality contributions.