After touting the promise of citizen journalism for years, Dan Gillmor is leaving his job as a columnist and blogger for the San Jose Mecury News to work on a citizen-journalism project.
“I hope to pull together something useful that helps enable — and demonstrates — the emerging grassroots journalism that I wrote about in my recent book (We The Media, 2004). Something powerful is happening, it’s in the early stages and I have a chance to help figure this out….
“I hate the idea of leaving,” he wrote in his blog. “But I’d hate not trying this even more.”
In an interview with OhMyNews.com, one of the leading citizen journalism efforts in the world, Gillmor elaborated on his decision:
“I hope that whatever we do is something that at some level newspapers can use, once newspapers decide to take the step that I think is necessary — which is to be part of this new world.”
