Get Your News From a Citizen Journalist? MSNBC Testing Citizen Political Coverage

The webscape is flanked by citizen journalist reports, and it seems as though the mainstream press is dipping its toes further into the average Joe pool. According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor (CSM), "If you click onto MSNBC.com for political updates, a month from now you may get some of your news from a fresh-faced, accordion-playing college sophomore named Nathan Robinson." Robinson is one of five finalists in an MSBNC/NBC/MySpace contest to cover the Democratic and Republican conventions for the networks. Two citizen journalists will be selected (one to cover each event) and the CSM says this will give Robinson the chance to "liven up mainstream journalism." The project, in my opinion, is a phenomenal initiative. It will no doubt come under criticism but it will also put citizen journalists into the spotlight. The initiative also leads me to wonder just exactly what being a "journalist" means. Does it mean you have a degree? Or does it mean you simply enjoy reporting news? If it's the latter, why the "citizen" prefix to an age-old profession? The world of journalism is growing much in the same way digital cameras revolutionized photography; anyone can do it inexpensively, so everyone does it. While many people still are skeptical of what they read if it's not flying under a mainstream banner, it's also important to note many mainstream journalists lack an official degree and instead show a penchant for news, objective reporting and balance. It's not hard to do, and if you can check your bias at the door you earn points in my book. So MSNBC's upcoming citizen journalist reports should be interesting to watch, as it will further democratize media, putting citizen reporters on the same front pages as trusted names. As the CSM also reports, "Stuck with rising competition from Internet-mediated news, traditional media have been reaching out to Web-savvy citizen journalists to expand their online audiences." This year's U.S. election is bringing a lot more than a president into the spotlight. I, for one, think it's great.