IP Democracy: Must-Read: Should Citizen Journalists Be Paid?

Courtesy of Lost Remote, this piece by Steve Outing at Poynter Online takes a look at whether citizen journalists should be paid. Outing contends that the best of citizen journalism should be compensated and the obvious starting point is photographs — there’s a track record in the media of buying amateur pictures.

Should news organizations assume that public generosity will continue to provide them with important citizen/eyewitness news coverage? I’d say that would be naive. The current period of undervalued (free) citizen content is likely to come to a close when it comes to the top-quality level of that content.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 15, 2005 8:59 AM to IP Democracy