One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons appeared at the height of the Star Trek shameless commerce craze (Star Trek: The Movie; Star Trek: The Book, etc.) Pictured was the lowliest of objects with this written on its side — “Star Trek: The Ashtray.”
Helium.com is our site where we invite writers around the world to practice and hone their skills. Here, however, we are going to engage in a running commentary on not only Helium, but on citizen journalism and contributor content and social media.
Okay, one of the first agenda items is to come up with the best of all possible terms to call those who are not professionally trained journalists and writers, but who are sometimes acting as journalists and are definitely practicing writers.
This isn’t exactly a new problem (see Poynter, 2005), but it’s a sticky one. Citizen media? Everytime we use the word “citizen,” I see Minutemen grabbing muskets and heading for Concord common. Well, submissions and ideas welcome.
–Janice
