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A short video that describes how citizen and traditional journalism can work together.

This video is helpful because it explains the difference between traditional journalism and citizen journalism. It talks about the rising growth and popularity of citizen journalism. Showing how everyday people are becoming journalists and writing newsworthy stories.

"Editor's Note: This blog post is the third installment in a 3-part series intended to look at engaging citizen reporters beyond crisis events. Part 1 can be found here, and Part 2 here. I've previously written that traditional newsrooms could better foster participation from citizens outside of widespread crisis events. In my first post, I explained why I thought it was common for both newsrooms and citizens to change their behavior during a large scale emergency. In my second post, I listed factors newsrooms might consider if they wish to create a more participatory culture. In this post, I note external forces that might encourage or even force a more participatory model for newsgathering and distribution. The combination of three factors, outlined below, point to the scales tipping towards increased citizen engagement in creating and sharing news."

Tomorrow (Jan. 14, 2012) marks the one-year anniversary of Tunisia's liberation from 23 years of oppression under dictator Ben Ali. It was a liberation sparked by one man's shocking public protest against injustice through self-immolation and fueled by the power of citizen journalism and social media. During the last months of 2010, Tunisians captured footage of protests and government oppression and shared them with thousands via Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Within weeks, similar protests sprang up in Egypt, Libya and other Arab countries, giving birth to the Arab Spring. With the power of the media now in the hands of every citizen with a smartphone, questions about ethics and accuracy are working their way through the journalism industry -- how do we know what we see on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter is true? Who are the media watchdogs for a form of journalism rooted in unedited immediacy?

"for major outlets, citizen reports tend to be siloed off in many instances, even on a stand-alone site such as CNN's iReport and Al Jazeera's Sharek. Other outlets have formed creative partnerships to create citizen-specific sites -- Reuters and Global Voices, for instance, or the combination of YouTube, WITNESS and Storyful that makes up the Human Rights Channel."

"We've previously written about how new media is creating a new style of journalism, and we've even compiled lists of apps that can help citizen journalists on the move. But here, we'll look at some of the top websites and blogs out there that help give citizen journalists a voice."

Stephen Colbert weighs in on CNN's recent decision to lay off 50 employees - "nobody important, just editors and photojournalists" - by praising CNN's use of iReporters, its name for citizen journalists. "Why buy the cow when you can have it shakily videotape its own milk for free?" Colbert asked. He then has one of his "Me Reporters" run down the day's headlines, which he reads from the front page of a USA Today still in a newspaper box. || Related: CNN's redesigned iReport will look more like a social network than a news site

CNN (this is a few months ago) laid off 50 employees, mainly editors and photojournalists because CNN's new iReporters (or citizen journalists) make up for these people who are professionals and are getting paid. iReporters do not get paid or... anything at all really. Colbert seems upset by the new trend of citizen journalism.

"ASU J-schoolers now have the opportunity to work alongside faculty members and media professionals as they correspond with PIN sources. The newest home of PIN, a thriving digital platform where more than 215,000 citizen experts have volunteered their expertise and angles to reporters across the country, will live in the Cronkite School's downtown Phoenix campus building."

Feeds and links to some of the most popular citizen journalism sites. Under each site link, the top five headlines are linked.

Poynter will cultivate and incubate new entrepreneurial media models in the digital space; deepen its understanding of how citizens are consuming news in the digital era; create case studies that analyze and help the public understand the workings of the nontraditional news sector, known as the Fifth Estate, and train those nontraditional journalism practitioners in a variety of journalism areas, including ethics and accuracy.  Poynter, a school dedicated to serving journalism in the interest of democracy, aspires through this project to influence -- for the good of a democratic society -- the news values that are emerging among those who are contributing news and information to this rapidly changing media landscape.

"Traditional newsrooms rarely create an environment that fosters this level of interaction outside of major emergencies. In my last post, I outlined a few of the reasons I suspect this happens. Here, I'd like to focus on ways a newsroom might be able to cultivate more frequent interaction with citizens."

A definition and defense of blogging and citizen journalism.

The global media market is dominated by roughly nine or ten transnational corporations: General Electric, AT&T/Liberty Media, Disney, Time Warner, Sony, News Corporation, Viacom, Seagram and Bertelsmann. However, with the advent of social media and blogging, the role of the citizen journalist is becoming more valuable than ever. He has the opportunity to present a unique perspective - to breathe fresh air into a society herded by mainstream media.

Jeff Jarvis video on Citizen Journalism

This article is a good sources talking about where journalism and blogging are now and where it will be going in the future.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism is dedicated to trying to understand the information revolution. We specialize in using empirical methods to evaluate and study the performance of the press, particularly content analysis. We are non partisan, non ideological and non political. Our goal is to help both the journalists who produce the news and the citizens who consume it develop a better understanding of what the press is delivering, how the media are changing, and what forces are shaping those changes. We have emphasized empirical research in the belief that quantifying what is occurring in the press, rather than merely offering criticism, is a better approach to understanding.

this the describes the cons of citizen journalism and the downfall of professional journalists. This relates to promoting discipline for verification,,, professional journalists should not be replaced

The Tiziano Project provides community members in conflict, post-conflict, and underreported regions with the equipment, training and affiliations necessary to report their stories and improve their lives. We knew early on that we wanted to focus as much on the journalism component as the tools and have since developed an online Classroom filled with openly available training curricula and lesson plans to help easily infuse journalism into any project.

The Tiziano Project provides community members in conflict, post-conflict, and underreported regions with the equipment, training and affiliations necessary to report their stories and improve their lives.

this relates to Giving a voice to the voiceless because it allows the average citizen to document what they see... they are the ultimate textbook.

"Reasonable people can - and do - debate whether the replacement of legacy media by new forms of information gathering and distribution - including citizen journalism and smartphone photojournalism, crowdsourcing, universal access to data and, of course, a world awash in Twitter feeds - makes democracy more or less vulnerable."

"That is why the Engaging News Project launched. We're a research group dedicated to helping newsrooms meet their business and journalistic goals. To do this, we test web-based strategies for informing audiences, promoting substantive discourse, and helping citizens to understand diverse views. At the same time, we analyze business outcomes, such as clicks and time on page."