My public argument: Don’t Kill Off Citizen Journalism

I like the networked journalism concept, but to me the phrase networked journalism is a cop out, a phrase used to offend no one. Indeed, what offends journalists is anytime the word citizen, public or civic is added to the equation. They whined about public or civic journalism, and now they whine about citizen journalism….

If we remove the words citizen, public, civic from the equation, it will be too easy to forget that this is about public, civic, citizen participation. This is not just about helping news operations to get a free staff or even developing better coverage, it’s a way of getting an engaged public to help build a bigger, better and stronger democracy.