Citizen Journalism

We discussed citizen journalism briefly today in class, and I thought this was a good example.

http://www.yourhub.com/

Yourhub.com is an example of citizen journalism that's owned by a corporation. In Denver, it's associated with the Rocky Mountain News, but it appears in other states as well. The idea behind yourhub.com is to get citizens involved and informed of community issues; the regions are very localized and it is mainly an online publication, though there is a weekly printed insert in the Rocky. Anyone who registers can post, and by posting online, citizens give rights to the publication to possibly be published in print. This concept of citizen journalism sort of reaches for the idea of a public sphere, but ultimately fails because there are some filters and control (though much less is controlled for than in an official publication).