Here’s a pop quiz:
You’re the editor or publisher of a mid-size metro daily newspaper. In one of the suburbs in your newspaper’s coverage area, a group of citizens decides to launch their own, online-only, independent newspaper. They start covering town council meetings, post photos of major fires and even write about a new playground. Citizen journalism has arrived in your backyard. First, decide whether the citizen journalists are competition.
Then answer this: What do you do?
A.) Be an ostrich: Panic, then ignore them by burying your head in the sand.
B.) Play defense: Increase your coverage of that particular community.
C.) Play offense (option 1): Buy them out, and then kill the project.
D.) Play offense (option 2): Launch citizen journalism projects through your own newspaper.
E.) Invite them to join your team: Create an online partnership with them to share information and articles.
The San Diego Union-Tribune, the (Manchester, N.H.) Union Leader, the Fort Myers News-Press and Morris Communications have all taken different approaches to citizen journalism. In these four cases, citizen journalism has either popped up in the newspaper’s coverage area, or the newspaper started working with citizen journalists to create a better product.
Learn what each news outlet is doing in this important and growing area, and go behind the scenes at a few successful citizen journalism operations.
P.S. This was on Poynter.org today: A column from Geoff Dougherty, editor of Chi-Town Daily News in Chicago, a citizen journalism-based news operation. It's an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the organization.