Take CNN’s report on September 11th that the U.S. Coast Guard fired 11 rounds of ammunition at a suspicious boat in the Potomac River in the vicinity of President Obama. Within 10 minutes, NPR had reported that the FBI and Coast Guard confirmed that NO shots had been fired during the routine training exercise. All it would have taken was a phone call, and CNN would not released a report capable of inciting panic and fear of a pending terrorist attack.

I have seen enough bias and misinformation provided by local, regional, and national news outlets in my lifetime that I usually attempt to verify the details of stories I find important to me. It is interesting how many conflicting reports one can find by doing so.

If you want to be a journalist for a living, I would strongly not recommend being a citizen journalist. A citizen journalist is no different from a blogger (not a bad thing), but with the fake prestige of being a real journalist “citizen” and “journalist” are basically higher class words, and nothing more. Journalism implies reporting, making beat contacts, and being able to be held accountable by your peers.

Newspapers have failed to do this themselves in recent years, but citizen journalism subtly creates the notion that those ideas are no longer necessary. This is a very dangerous thing, but if citizen journalism were to develop the ability self-regulate, it would be a viable option for journalism.

Citizen journalism is like a box-cutter — a useful tool IF used carefully.

Blogging has come a long way from its early beginnings. Today, there are a number of sites that break solid news and abide by real journalistic principles.

I’m more open to citizen journalists because they often highlight stories that are not covered in MSM or not covered in depth. Especially with the cutbacks in print today, CJ’s can help keep the grit and dirt of journalism alive with their coverage of micro beats.

However, the problem, like with much of online writing are those taking shortcuts or who write to hear themselves but don’t contribute to the general knowledge or public discourse. Often they don’t disclose their sponsors, ties or corporate backers, they don’t have knowledge of basic journalism principles and practices – unbiased reporting, etc. that make their work legitimate or they are simply bad writers.

I don’t think we can write off the entire group for those who are less journalism-y than we can write off all bloggers because some of them suck.

To be blunt, my thoughts about citizen journalist are …NOT.

Though “formal training” may not be all it’s cracked up to be, it does teach one to not report “half” of a story — though even some traditional journalism pubs fail in that regard today.

Of course, if one considers it as “introduction to journalism,” it’s probably fine, except you don’t get the feedback to improve your work.