Here’s an awesome report from Poynter Online and Steve Outing about the emerging trend of citizen journalism. He provides a great overview and links to almost all the important players in the space. It would have been cool to see Roland, UrbanVancouver, Drupal or Bryght mentioned also… especially since it’s still a small and emerging space and they’ve been in it since the beginning. I dropped Steve a line and hope to hook him up with Roland later today.

Here’s his list of the 11 steps to help media publishers go from dipping a toe into the waters of participatory journalism to fully embracing citizen reporting and putting the organizations resources behind it.

1. The first step: Opening up to public comment
2. Second step: The citizen add-on reporter
3. Now we’re getting serious: Open-source reporting
4. The citizen bloghouse
5. Newsroom citizen ‘transparency’ blogs
6. The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: Edited version
7. The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: Unedited version
8. Add a print edition
9. The hybrid: Pro + citizen journalism
10. Integrating citizen and pro journalism under one roof
11. Wiki journalism: Where the readers are editors

“Citizen journalism.” It’s one of the hottest buzzwords in the news business these days. Many news executives are probably thinking about implementing some sort of citizen-journalism initiative; a small but growing number have already done so.

In my conversations and communications with editors, I sense plenty of confusion about the concept. There’s enthusiasm about experimenting in some quarters — about harnessing the power of an audience permitted for the first time to truly participate in the news media. But mostly I hear concern and healthy skepticism.

This article is designed to help publishers and editors understand citizen journalism and how it might be incorporated into their Web sites and legacy media. We’ll look at how news organizations can employ the citizen-journalism concept, and we’ll approach it by looking at the different levels or layers available. Citizen journalism isn’t one simple concept that can be applied universally by all news organizations. It’s much more complex, with many potential variations

Thx to my crazy Swedish friends for the link…