The Blog Peoria Project

Thank you for Paul Beebe’s article “Winder-Deseret Connect mess casts shadow on citizen journalism model” (Tribune, Nov. 20). The problem at the Deseret News is that it does not really use many citizen “journalists”; it uses mommy-bloggers and aspiring writers willing to work for free to get their names in the paper.

Sadly, dozens of experienced, competent reporters lost their careers and livelihoods when the News’ new management replaced them with ambitious amateur contributors. There are some excellent News contributors who are former staff members, but others just want the free publicity.

I don’t like the scare quotes this writer tosses around the phrase citizen “journalists,” but she has a point. Newspapers are cuytting staff, then augmenting staffs with unpaid reporters. It’s not fair and it’s not right.