Future of Citizen news... five years from now.

I've been reading all the posts about citizen news - and watching as folks like Dan Gilmore jump off the MSM train and begin to launch local blogs. There are some natural things going on - and a likely outcome that is worth considering.

Let's start with Podcasts. I don't own an Ipod (gasp) yes, I know - should. But I don't really have that much time when having ear buds in my head would work out. Anyway, not at this moment.

So it wasn't until I discovered libsyn.com that I figured out what is obvious in hindsight - you don't need an Ipod. Ok, I might get one, in part to get podcasts into my car - but I can listen to them on my laptop. So I did. A whole bunch. And there were three categories. Good ones (well done, interesting, with good voices and good ideas) Ok ones (actually bad, but trying to be good) and Goofs (bad and bad on purpose).

My discovery is that - once my blog reader can sort out podcasts. Once there is good search mechanism. Once the good ones are really good. I'll subscribe and make them part of my media diet.

Which brings me to local news. Right now - local news is pretty bad. Sorry to my friends who toil away at local stations - but it's bad. It doesn't tell me much of what I need to know. And it always leads with car accidents or murders (often in boroughs or towns miles away from where I live). Cable news is better.

But news is local. And local is geographic. And media is mass, and that's the rub. So along comes citizen journalism. Lots of disaffected writers - some of the escapees from mainstream journalism, some of them wane be journalists, some of them kooks. I'm fine with all of them having publishing tools. Just like they had a typewriter and and a mimeograph machine before the web.

But in a few years- once the tools are all in place, and my media diet has some sort of filter/reciever/organizer to get me stuff from lots of places (blogs, vlogs, tv, cable, iptv, podcasts, whatever).

I'm going to filter OUT the 'b' and 'c' level stuff. And I won't be alone. Folks will gravitate to content that is well made, interesting, thoughtful, funny, provocative, engaging, insightful, powerful, - words like that.

And - here's the prediction. Advertisers will PAY to put messages next to their content. And because these messages will be interesting to me (one hopes) I won't mind. I may even pay a fee to subscribe to these content makers.

My point is - citizen journalists are simply what journalists always used to be, distinctly engaged citizens who will... at some point... want to make a living so that they can be citizen journalists full time (rather than in the middle of the night).

This is by no means to say that enterprises like Ohmynews won't be important. Individuals will contribute certainly - but the practice of making content for people won't become an all volunteer affair (like the fire departments in small towns) it will simply evolve as the media ecology and the advertising community figure out how to fund effective, successful local media.

And now we mean local in the true sense of the word. Stories that effect my community. Both my geographic community and my intellectual community. Oh, and my community of hobbies and interests as well.

So the idea that news is facing a time of change is real - and certainly scary for the current keepers of the space. But the idea that allow a new generation of thinkers, storytellers, and even tabloid types to have a bit of bandwidth is going to turn all of us media consumers into mindless consumers of dreck gives far too much credit to the condition of local news as it exists. It can't get much worse.