Newspaper articles

“Citizen Journalism Project Gains a Voice in the Campaign.” New York Times. July 25, 2008: B1

Offthebus.net has more than 7,500 contributors to its Democratic-sided Web site. Recently, the citizen journalism site has affected the presidential campaign with a writer reporting from a small town about some disparaging remarks by Barack Obama. The post made headlines nationwide when the writer reported Obama’s “bitter” small-town voters comment. The article delves into the beginnings and motivations behind the site and the concept of citizen journalism. It’s interesting to see the examples that show citizen journalism as making a difference in a presidential race.


Cohen, Noam. “Journalism in the Hands of the Neighborhood.” New York Times. March 10, 2008, late ed.: B3

The Internet is ubiquitous in the United States. A vast majority of the population has access to it; therefore, the news is in the hands of the people, according to this article. However, the article claims that the only people able to access this ability to tell the news as he/she sees it are the people with Internet access. Those who are on the other side of the digital divide still have no power. One demographic represented in the article was immigrants – illegal or legal. Often, they are left on the wrong side of the digital divide without the proper equipment to access the Internet or without Internet all together.


Johnson, Steve. “Stamping citizen journalism.” Chicago Tribune. 21 May 2008: B3.

Steve Johnson writes this article primarily in first-person as he walks the reader through a class teaching citizens how to be journalists, thus releasing more trained-citizen journalists into the public. The general tone of the story is rather discouraging because he mentions the lack of involvement or motivation for citizen journalists to write the news. Major news events such as the London bombings or Hurricane Katrina offer plenty of opportunity for citizens take up their pens and cameras and report the news in the absence of trained professionals. However, in the day-to-day life of citizens how do editors keep their volunteer stringers motivated. This side of the story is one that often only arises when a Web site fails (and many do).