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Exciting developments and investments involving citizen journalists were announced during the last couple of months of 2010.

Here are just some of the news items:

1) Thomson Reuters announced Dec. 14 that it will partner with citizen journalism site, Examiner.com, and other U.S. content providers as part of the company’s multimillion-dollar investment to help meet the needs of U.S. newsrooms.

In a Dec. 14 press release, the news agency said its goal is to increase its domestic news offering, and to offer publishers and broadcasters the tools they need to increase efficiency, reduce cost and drive revenue.

Examiner.com, whose 65,000 citizen contributors – or examiners – generate thousands of articles daily with “fresh, original and locally relevant content,” is just one of the entities involved in the Reuters America project, according to the press release. Other outlets distributing content through Reuters include The Wrap News, SportsDirect Inc., The Sports Xchange, US PRESSWIRE and SB Nation.

2) Yahoo announced on Nov. 15 that it was launching a contributor network to add the “voice of the people.”

In its press release, Yahoo! said it “is inviting people to contribute to many of its most popular sites with the launch of the Yahoo! Contributor Network, a new platform for people to publish their creative content on Yahoo! The Yahoo! Contributor Network . . . will bring contributions from more than 400,000 writers, photographers, and videographers to the Internet’s largest media destinations. . . . ”

3) On Dec. 15, it was announced that blogging community network Global Voices and citizen journalism wire Demotix will begin sharing text and images.

On the Demotix blog, CEO Turi Munthe said: “We share a profound commitment to the ‘crowd’ and its power, and a profound commitment to opening the news conversation. Global Voices run the best network of global bloggers anywhere – to combine their work with our images has always made sense.”

4) CNN, which first began accepting citizen reports in 2006, celebrated citizens’ involvement with a video released Dec. 16 that showcases 194 iReports from 194 countries.

While these are some of the larger stories that have appeared in recent months, there also a couple of smaller stories that are worth noting as well.

Gannett is adding to its investment in TucsonCitizen.com, a community journalism site created when the Arizona newspaper closed down in May 2009. The site was designed to satisfy Justice Department requirements regarding Gannett’s Joint Operating Agreement with Lee Enterprises, publisher of Tucson’s other daily, the Arizona Daily Star.

With the persistent and very capable leadership of site editor Mark Evans, TucsonCitizen.com now has 65 citizen contributors and has nearly doubled its page views from the same time last year to almost 1 million a month.

Evans said he no longer fears that he will come to work one day and learn that the site will be closed down.

Just the opposite appears to be happening. With Gannett funding, Evans was able to hire Anthony Gimino as a full-time employee beginning Jan. 3 to oversee the TucsonCitizen.com’s growing sports blogging network and to assist in the overall administration of the community website. Also in January, a part-time social media editor will be hired to help with the site’s social media efforts and to grow the site’s audience.

In Pennsylvania, Pattye Benson is among the bloggers being noticed by professional journalists as credible and worthy of adding to their news sites. Benson, who has been writing her blog, Community Matters, for a year, announced Dec. 17 that she could now be found on the newspaper website of Mainline Media News.

Benson notes on her blog: “There have been a few naysayers who have questioned if my blog was mainstream journalism. Tom Murray’s offer for Community Matters to ‘live in the space’ of the newspaper validates this citizen journalist and hopefully now quiets those critics.”

There may be many more smaller stories like these last two, but I just don’t know about them. All-in-all, I’d say the outlook is pretty bright for citizen journalists and bloggers. I can’t wait to see what 2011 brings.

Susan Cormier is the head coach in charge of training at the National Association of Citizen Journalists (http://nacj.us/) and co-author of the “Handbook for Citizen Journalists” (http://www.citizenjournalistnow.com/).

I’m using this space to collect citizen journalism articles on the recent snow storm in North America. Please add what you find in the comments.

Snow Storm 2010: Pictures From Around New York (Huffington Post)

Quoted in Buffalo News: Citizen Journalism and the Snowstorm (theory.isthereason)

James Offers Update on Snow Cleanup (The Local, Ft. Greene-Clinton Hill, NY)

New Jersey Blizzard Time Lapse (Live Leak) Video <–amazing to watch

Snow storm in Boro Park Brooklyn, New York (Mayomo) Video

Most citizen journalists don’t have the luxury of asking a skilled editor to proof their articles before they submit them.

In fact, citizen journalists often find themselves in the difficult situation of writing and then editing their own copy. This can be the most difficult editing that exists because it is very hard to catch your own errors. You know what you want the article to say, so you overlook misspelled or misused words, typos and incorrect grammar.

Believe me, I know. I’ve had my share of self-editing struggles.

So before submitting your articles, I highly recommend asking someone to review them for any possible errors. If you have a friend who can look over your work, by all means do it.

Another suggestion is to read your story at least three times. The first edit should focus on whether the story makes sense. During the second reading, pay special attention to spelling and grammar. On the third time through, you might want to see if there are any unanswered questions or negative words that could get you into trouble.

If time allows, give some distance between your readings, like an hour or two. That gives you a chance to walk away, think about something else and then come back more refreshed to look at your writing and catch possible errors.

These editing suggestions are the type of information included in the “Handbook for Citizen Journalists” and the training offered by the National Association of Citizen Journalists. For more information or to order your e-copy of the handbook, visit http://www.citizenjournalistnow.com/. To learn more about the training offered by the NACJ or to sign up for your free subscription to the Citizen Journalist Post, visit http://www.nacj.us/.

Brian Stelter at Media Decoder reported on a study from the University of Maryland’s WorldPublicOpinion.org on how misinformed news consumers were when concentrating on just one news source. Even though it found that consumers of MSNBC and public broadcasting were also misinformed about some topics, viewers of Fox News were drastically more misinformed.

When asked to comment on this finding, Fox News senior vice president of news editorial Michael Clemente said, “‘The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having “Students Who Study The Least” and being the “Best Party School” – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was “researched” with.’”

Stelter oh so subtly points out that Clemente was spreading even more misinformation in that statement. Princeton Review has placed the University of Maryland as one of the best northeastern universities, and it is not the “Best Party School,” ranking at #19.

You can’t make this stuff up, folks.

It’s frustrating that citizen journalists get the bad rap for accuracy when the guy who oversees objective news programming at Fox carelessly throws around such arrogantly inaccurate quips.

Study: Some Viewers Were Misinformed by TV News (Media Decoder)

Examiner.com and its citizen journalists will get a huge boost in recognition and probably pay now that they are joining forces with Thomson Reuters.

Check out what the Examiner.com CEO has to say about that deal at http://blog.examiner.com/2010/12/14/examiner-com-teams-up-with-thomson-reuters/.

And, of course, to tell the other side, here’s the press release from Thomson Reuters:  http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Reuters-America-Launches-to-Meet-Needs-of-US-Newsrooms-NYSE-TRI-1368325.htm

Personally, I can’t wait to see what Reuters America will mean to the citizen journalism movement in the United States.

Dear Mr. Assange,

Congratulations. You are out on bail now. The sexual charges against you have been laid to the wayside, while your team of Wikileakers (hackers? citizen journalists?) are continuing business as usual. And by usual I mean, of course, the business of releasing top-secret Federal records into the hands of the general public.

Your desire for truth and transparency have led some to call you the supreme citizen journalist and a First Amendment hero (excluding the fact that your rights are void since you are Australian). Others have called you a scammer, a thief, a wannabe, and an attention whore. I would love to know, what title have you given yourself?

While the information you have released is interesting, thought provoking, and has certainly revealed flaws in the security systems of the US Government, I’m not sure what the information is useful for. I’m not sure of why you, especially, have such a strong desire for this kind of outing. I wonder why you do the work you do?

Does the general public, and in turn, do the citizen journalists of the world really need to know the meals ordered by the Prince of Saudi or dates of the imprisonments of Middle Eastern murderers? What purpose is there in allowing trained and untrained media professionals to spread this supposed news? And further more, is confidential information safe in the hands of citizen journalists?

I don’t expect you to answer these questions for me, Mr. Assange. Something tells me your interest is not in that of the citizen journalist, or the citizens in general; rather, you are more intrigued with the title you’ve been chasing for so long: anarchist celebrity hacker.

I thought I’d suggest a couple of last-minute gift ideas for those citizen journalists or want-to-be reporters that you know. These books offer great information and a historical perspective on the citizen journalism movement:

“Couch Potatoes Sprout: The Rise of Online Community Journalism” was written by Jack Driscoll and can be found at
http://www.amazon.com/Couch-Potatoes-Sprout-Community-Journalism/dp/1436371597.

“Handbook for Citizen Journalists” was written by Ron Ross and Susan Carson Cormier and can be purchased as an e-book at http://www.citizenjournalistnow.com/.

“We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People” was written by Dan Gillmor and can be bought at http://www.amazon.com/We-Media-Grassroots-Journalism-People/dp/0596102275/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292532301&sr=8-1.

Happy holidays!

A recent CNN iReport video includes much citizen footage of the winter storm that has blanketed the U.S. east, midwest and south.

In a recent discussion about the sustainability of citizen journalism, it was mentioned that many citizen journalists might not have the stamina or desire to cover the hard news of their town.

Citizen journalists often are unable to spend four hours at a city council, planning & zoning or school board meeting. Not only don’t they have the time, they often don’t get paid for their efforts.

Some of us in the discussion agree that it might be more fun – and less of a time-consuming headache – for citizen journalists to write feature stories instead. In fact, some aspiring writers might be more willing to enter into the citizen journalism world if they didn’t have to deal with government and bureaucracies.

I can understand that. As a practicing citizen journalist and former newspaper reporter, I haven’t had the desire to attend a planning commission or city council meeting. But I have had a lot of fun writing feature stories about people in my communities.

Feature stories can be much more fun than news stories. And there are hundreds of stories out there, including a couple celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary, a teenager who excels in a certain sport or musical endeavor, or a volunteer at a local animal shelter or food bank.

So to those who are considering entering the world of citizen journalism, go for it! Write a feature story or two and see how much fun it can be.

Susan Cormier is the head coach in charge of training at the National Association of Citizen Journalists (http://www.nacj.us/) and co-author of the “Handbook for Citizen Journalists” (http://www.citizenjournalistnow.com/).

Campaigners have announced two days of direct action to oppose the British government’s unpopular education funding cuts and plans to treble university fees to £9,000 a year writes Marc Wadsworth.

To support the magnificent struggles mounted by students The-Latest.Com, the UK’s first dedicated citizen journalism website, is planning extensive coverage of the protests at universities across the country on Wednesday and Thursday that include a mass lobby of Members of Parliament and candlelit vigil on Thursday when MPs will stage a crucial vote.

We encourage members and supporters of the website to attend the events, that include a march on parliament, and submit to us your eyewitness accounts, images and video of the protest directly to The-Latest or by email to editor@the-latest.com. This is the best way to upload content to the site. But we also have an emergency mobile hotline: 07950 241795.

It is worth noting that The-Latest was the first news media organisation to question police brutality and the killing of innocent bystander Ian Tomlinson at the G20 event of April last year. Until our scoop, big media had happily peddled police propaganda about what happened.

We urge our female members and supporters to join the National Union of Students Women’s Campaign on Wednesday and demonstrate outside the office of Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament Lynne Featherstone. She is Minister for Women and Equalities in the coalition government and MP for Hornsey and Wood Green in London.  She should be persuaded to join other Lib Dem MPs and leading Conservative David Davis, a former Home Secretary, to vote against the government’s proposals on December 9.

Any increase in fees will hit women, minorities and poor people hardest and shut the door to education for thousands of them.

In advance of the crucial House of Commons vote, ministers have said universities that want to charge students up to £9,000 a year in fees will face fresh targets on widening access to applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds. Yet admissions data from Oxford and Cambridge, Britain’s top two universities, has revealed a whitewash.

It confirms that only one Black Briton of Caribbean descent was accepted for undergraduate study at Oxford last year. And white students were more likely to be successful than Black applicants at every Cambridge college except St Catharine’s.

The National Union of Students (NUS), University and College Union (UCU) and National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) is organising rallies, a candle lit vigil, march and mass lobby of parliament. Please attend and send your reports, images and video to The-Latest.

On the day of the vote lobbyists will join protestors on Victoria Embankment, London, for a rally from 3pm.

After it gets dark, the demonstrators will hold up 9,000 Glo-sticks in a candlelit vigil with the stunning Thames backdrop to symbolise the potential new annual fee students could face.

A news release from the NCAFC said: “We call on the police to allow our march to reach Parliament, and to refrain from the harassment and kettling tactics that they have shamefully deployed in the past few weeks. We will not stand for our civil liberties being trampled week after week by the authorities.”

It added: “We call on all students, education workers and sympathisers to join us on the streets on Thursday to show this Government that they can’t get away with their ideological assault on education and our public services.”

Since the NUS and UCU joint 50,000-strong demonstration on November 10 there there has been an unprecedented level of student activism against devastating cuts to education, the axing of the education maintenance allowance (EMA) to help poor students, the proposed trebling of tuition fees and now the proposed abolition of AimHigher.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt, said: “These proposals, if they go through, will change the entire landscape of education in this country and we must continue to oppose them.  We need to expose the damage they will do to our universities, colleges and communities.

“MPs must be left in no doubt of the strength of opposition to these plans and the consequences of voting for them. We have been overwhelmed by support from people across the country against these plans and we hope they will all join us in making their voice heard this week.”

NUS president Aaron Porter, said: “The joint NUS and UCU march that brought together 50,0000 people on 10 November has provided the spur to a new wave of activism and lobbying, placing the Government’s policy on fees and student support policy under huge pressure.

“This week we must keep that pressure up as the vote approaches. MPs can be left in no doubt as to the widespread public opposition to these plans or of the consequences of steamrollering them through Parliament.”

If you take part in any of the protests on Wednesday and Thursday we hope that you keep warm, alert and safe.

Huge protests planned to oppose government attack on students:http://www.the-latest.com/huge-protests-planned-oppose-government-attack-students

*Marc Wadsworth is Editor at UK citizen journalism website The-Latest.com.