As stated in the articles for this week’s reading, there is opportunity for significant issues that arise in the world of citizen or non-professional journalism. Accuracy in reporting, timely content delivery, and content quality are just a few of the issues. However, there are also tremendous advantages to using ‘community contributors’ as mentioned in the Sacramento Press article. These contributors could cover stories that larger daily papers could not. Citizen journalists, whether their channel is a news site like the Sacremento Press, or social media outlets such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, can tell stories that they feel need to be told in an efficient way.
However, as Barton suggests, the quality and accuracy may leave something to be desired. I do believe that citizen journalists are an important part of the new media reality, but I also believe that fact checking and editing are necessary components of a credible news outlet. As always, the answer to our media quagmire lies somewhere in between an all-citizen newsroom and an all-professional one.
How do you decide which sources are credible and which sources are not?
What motivation does a website such as the Sacramento Press have to retain professional journalists if they are getting so much content for free?
Strategically Communicating 
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