Citizen Journalism: Web 2.0 Content Creators Get Taken Seriously

It started with Wikis, and moved on to news agencies signing up for services like Blogburstto add additional content to their sites. Now, newspapers are noticing the value of bloggers, and a new breed of citizen journalists is gaining prominence.

PaidContent notes that the new commuter daily BostonNow, is using news items that readers submit via their web site. Obviously, the first question is going to be how these content providers are compensated, but BostonNow has at least started out by rewarding press passes, a coveted honor that can net you free admission to a lot of places. For many bloggers, a press pass is the Holy Grail, a sign that you are a Serious Journalist. It prevents you from having to argue your status for conference admissions and other events.

BostonNow isn't the only evidence that bloggers are being taken seriously as citizen journalists. The newest version of the Free Flow of Information Act, which I touched on in a previous article, includes bloggers in its definition of "covered journalists:"

This section is meant to apply the protections of the Act to any person engaged in “journalism” (defined in subsection (5), below). The term “person” is defined by preexisting statute to “include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.” 1 U.S.C. § 1. Thus, the Act would apply to all forms of media that provide information to the public, including newspapers, magazines, book publishers, television networks and stations, cable and satellite networks, channels and programming services, news agencies and wire se In addition, the Act would apply to web logs (“blogs”) that engage in journalism.

Adding this protection for bloggers protects them from intimidation from large corporations as well as protects any potential government agency whistle-blowers, who would have the protection of blogging for their reporting. The biggest challenge to the bill will most likely come from large corporations who are already in the media's sights on a regular basis. For those of us who've been reading and writing blogs for years, this new status is obviously long overdue.