Citizen Journalism Is So Hot, It Beats Traditional Journalism to the Punch

Back in April, a number of local webloggers pointed the web savvy community to a report issued by the Project for Excellence in Journalism that tapped Richmond at the top of 15 large, medium and small cities for the number of and quality of news and community focused weblogs. (The Fan District Hub has the original source email.)

Richmond.com just tackled the subject in a bit of a content lite piece (part one of two) on the matter, though to call the folks behind community weblogs "citizen journalists" feels like a stretch to me. A force for good, yes. Powerful beyond the ken of any man, certainly. But not journalists.

Still, the points stands -- Richmond has got far more community weblog activity than your average bear.

Comments

[Paul]

I agree, we are journalist. We write, we publish, we don't get paid.

[John]

John M -- I agree wholeheartedly. But "sometimes" isn't enough for me to pin the red badge of journalism to anyone's chest. The community weblogs are awesome vehicles for civic engagement and information sharing -- and they are increasingly becoming a source for Richmond's news organizations -- but I still don't see us as "citizen journalists"...

[Jeff]

OK, so John kind of hinted at this but I'll just come out and say it. The writer of the Richmond.com piece was obviously, shall we say, "discovering" journalism. Which is OK. That being said, how does a poorly-written article on what is considered "traditional media" still count as "traditional media" when there are a number of citizen journalism/community journalism/bloggers writing better pieces (content and syntax-wise)? Sure, many bloggers will never blur the line between traditional and new media. It's just someone who enjoys writing and online diarist-ing. However, folks like B&M, RCR, CHPN and others are already starting to blur this line.

[anonymous]

another fine example of citizen journalism. http://historicvarina.blogspot.com/ i can't figure out who h. cornhill is, but it doesn't matter. like me, i think they are anonymous. not only are they keeping everyone informed on the continuous poor judgement (if not deceptive) of the henrico co board of supervisors, their writing style is exemplary.

[john m]

We're journalist, sometimes... I offer 2 recent examples: http://cjwn.net/news/2008/05/08/one-to-one-replacement-the-big-tenant-issue-at-rrha-public-meeting http://rvanews.com/2008/05/notes-from-the-school-board-meeting-re-charter-school/