About this project

Thanks for stopping by “Principles of Citizen Journalism” — a project by the Center for Citizen Media for the Knight Foundation’s new Citizen News Network.

As the genre we call citizen journalism emerges as a valuable part of our information ecosystem, we need to encourage people to participate in a high-quality, honorable way. Naturally, most folks don’t come to this endeavor with the same backgrounds or knowledge that many professionals take for granted.

How can we help? With this project, we’re focusing not so much on the how-to of doing journalism. Instead, we’re taking what we hope is a useful look at something even more important: the principles that accompany sound journalism.

What are those principles? We believe they are accuracy, thoroughness, fairness, transparency and independence.

Our team has compiled a lot of material in these pages, in text, audio, video, slide shows and more. Feel free to browse at the surface or dive into the details.

A work in progress

Two key points as you look around:

First, this project is a work in progress. It can never be entirely done. We plan to update these pages as time goes by.  The principles aren’t likely to change, but the material we find to reinforce them almost certainly will.

Second, we could use your help. If you see errors or have suggestions on how we can improve the site, please let us know in the comments below each page or contact us here.

We hope you’ll participate in this ongoing conversation.