Citizen journalism is about to eat my lunch. That's all right. Smart "old" media organisations and new online ones are learning to incorporate the grassroots phenomena into their pages, giving a credible outlet to what has become a mass movement.

As a media type, I say the rise of citizen journalism in general is a "good thing" for our industry. On the other hand, I worry that the rise in popularity of the form could erode the level of truth and standards in what we call the "news". The answer is: trust and credibility will always be the main currency in our industry. Those "citizens" who take up homespun reporting will have to stick with those principles if they want their efforts to grow into something meaningful.

Citizen journalism is a step up from the usual blogs, which can also be a treasure trove of news and information. This is the act of ordinary people to form their own news sites, with original reporting, analysis, content and comments.

So far citizen journalism sites have been lacking in quality content, despite the ideals of involving the public in a more participatory journalism.

Sites such as Pajamasmedia.com, Backfence.com, and Buzzmachine.com are still struggling to come up with the goods, day in and day out. But they are attracting a significant if small number of visitors. The media is starting to pay attention.

Usually citizen journalism gets attention during a crisis, such as the 2004 South Asian Tsumani and the London bombings last year. But a lot deals with news written by community residents that is not usually covered, or has been ignored by the local rag.

The more the merrier for democracy, I say, and I encourage anyone in Bermuda to move up a step, if they have the energy to do their own reporting, the know-how needed to run a site, and the persistence they need to get others involved.

One good guide for you is The Net for Journalists, a free guide produced by UNESCO, the Thomson Foundation and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association.

Another guide, by the UK's National Union of Journalists (www.nuj.org.uk), is a code of practice for publishers of citizen journalism. It is designed to encourage newspapers, radio and other media on the responsible and ethical use of user-generated material.

The guide also serves to set out some of your rights as more mainstream media catch the rising trend of involving the general public in news production. Traditional newspaper publishers see the trend as an opportunity to capture back some of the readership they are losing to the online world.

In December, the International Newspaper Marketing Association (INMA) also published a guide for its newspaper executives.

"The growing citizen journalism trend can become a conduit for the reader interactivity that previously was the end-result of the news experience for consumers, and now serves as the start of a dialogue that is shaping the future of news," INMA says. But beginning the process of getting citizen contributions poses a difficult, time consuming and potentially risky process for publications. Facts have to be checked and unprofessional writing and reporting needs to be cleaned up.

A Poynter Institute (www.poynter.org) article "The 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism" outlines the various stages a media outlet might go through in incorporating reporting from the public.

These range from allowing simple comments at the bottom of regular articles, all the way to full scale integration between the amateur and professional reporting functions.

A "hybrid" of professional plus citizen journalism is number nine on the Poynter list. South Korean site OhmyNews is the best example of this approach. It has recruited, to date, some 38,000 "citizen reporters", who contribute articles for review by the editorial staff, author Steve Outing reports.

BlufftonToday.com, a South Carolina news website that's part of the Morris Communications news empire, also melds the two worlds. Accompanying the website is the daily Bluffton Today print edition, the main newspaper for the small town of the same name, population 1,600. How about a "St. George's Weekly", or a "Warwick Insider"? Outing says he has not found any examples of the next stage, number ten, integrating citizen and pro journalism under one roof. This would be a news Web site made up of reports by professional journalists directly alongside submissions from everyday citizens.

Citizen journalism in the form of number 11 boasts a ready example already, Wikinews, where the readers are also editors and contributors.

Like the encyclopaedia version, Wikinews operates on the theory that the knowledge and intelligence of the group can produce credible, well-balanced news accounts.

For local newspapers the process of incorporating citizen journalism poses lots of risk and work.

Whether it will turn out to be meaningful in gaining back lost eyeballs is still an open question.