Columbia Missourian
One of the earliest citizen journalism sites announced today that it will be shutting down. University of Missouri journalism professor Clyde Bentley, who founded MyMissourian, wrote:
“I will shed only tears of joy when our internationally-known citizen journalism site “graduates” this week.
MyMissourian.com is a unique part of the journalism world to which the Missouri School of Journalism gave birth, but that the people of Columbia reared. But after seven years, it is time to close the site. Instead, the stories, recipes, photos and memories that you have shared with your neighbors will take their place with the rest of the news in the Columbia Missourian under the heading “From Readers.” …
When we started MyMissourian in 2004, however, it was with the dream that we would someday scratch the “citizen” and just make your participation a part of everyday journalism. Seven years later, the rancor among old-line newshounds and the doubts among researchers have died down. Between blogs, Twitter, Facebook and MyMissourian, people just take it for granted that they have a voice in the public forum. Today almost every major and minor news organization has some sort of participatory journalism element.
So we are there. Not citizen journalism, not yours-and-ours journalism. Just journalism. Thanks, MyMissourian.
Related: “Teaching citizen journalism challenges both profession and professor” (PBS MediaShift, 2007) | MyMissourian introduces reverse publishing (2005) | Civic and spiritual life popular sections on MyMissourian — Case Study (2005)
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