Front page rivalry: pros versus citizen journalists

We’ve featured numerous citizen journalist ventures over the past few years (here, here, here and here). A new spotting just came in from Denmark, where free daily newspaper Nyhedsavisen is merging citizen journalism with its traditional counterpart. Bloggers and other citizen journalists have access to Avisen.dk‘s homepage, where their stories are published alongside articles written by the newspaper’s editorial staff. Pros and amateurs compete for top positions in the ‘most read’ and ‘most debated’ sections. To contribute, ‘Læserskribenter’ (roughly translated as reader-writers) create a profile on Avisen.dk and set up a blog on the website. Whether a user-generated piece makes it to the homepage, is determined by its popularity. Putting pro journalists and citizen journalists on equal footing is an interesting way to bridge the divide between traditional media and user-generated media. The next step, of course, is to financially reward top contributors, which Avisen doesn’t seem to be doing. More on that in trendwatching.com’s briefing about Generation C(ash), which lists a number of new media companies that are helping users get paid for the content they’re creating.