Non-profit associations

The Center for Citizen Media. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://citmedia.org)

The Center for Citizen Media offers invaluable resources for citizen journalists or researchers of citizen journalism. The principles of citizen journalism section offers current or future writers resources necessary to ensure accuracy, thoroughness, fairness, transparency, and independence in their work. This particular section of the site was compiled through a separate project called The Knight Citizen New Network. Aside from the tips available to aspiring writers, there is related news and blogs. The site, overall, is quite useful for anyone interested in writing for a citizen journalism publication. Citmedia.org will continue to add more tools of the trade based on the data they receive from surveys and web forms asking users to suggest new sites and projects.


The Knight Citizen News Network. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://www.kcnn.org)

The Knight Citizen News Network is a resource for citizen journalists or anyone interesting in citizen journalism. The site offers a learning module that offers simple, yet useful, lesson about some tools citizen journalists can use in their writing and information gathering. The subjects become gradually more targeted toward editors and content managers rather than the average citizen. Additionally, there are well-researched readings about case studies, survey results and industry leader interviews. The site offers a wealth of knowledge for amateurs and professionals alike including a .pdf copy of a comprehensive online journalism book titled, “Journalism 2.0.”


Madison Commons. 25 Aug. 2008 (http://www.madisoncommons.org)

Madison Commons is a trained-citizen journalism site that is a project of the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. This site is an example of citizen journalism when the writers receive training in writing and reporting through free workshops at local libraries and community buildings. Staff editors edit all content prior to publication for structure, accuracy, and spelling and grammatical errors. The goal of this project, like many other local citizen journalism projects, is to offer normally lightly covered neighborhoods a news source about their area.