Complete report

The survey also shows that more than one-third (37%) of the online local news users noticed news content reported and written by citizens on the websites they visited most frequently, but nearly 19% were not sure. On the other hand, only 28% of the editors thought there were news contents reported and written by citizens on their newspapers' websites, and 70% did not notice them.

Similar to evaluation of breaking news content online, the 59 online local news users and the 347 editors that noticed news content reported and written by citizens were asked to evaluate the quality of the citizen journalism in terms of accuracy, timeliness, fairness, depth and thoroughness, and coverage.

On a 4-point score where 1 was "poor" and 4 was "excellent," the 59 users gave scores ranging from 2.37 to 2.64 to the quality measures, indicating that the citizen journalism online was acceptable. Using the same scale, the 347 editors rated the qualities ranging from 2.04 to 2.54, similar to those given by the users.

Half of the 59 users (51%) rated the citizen journalism's coverage of what was of interest to them as fair, 36% good, and nine percent excellent. The editors, though, were more critical than the public about the practice of current citizen journalism in covering what was of interest to them, as 22% thought it was poor in comparison to the five percent of the public. In addition, two percent of the editors rated the citizen journalism as excellent, and 26% good, compared to nine percent and 36% given by the public users, respectively.

As shown above, the users gave a higher score to the citizen journalism in its coverage of what was of importance to the community than to the other measures, as ten percent thought the coverage was excellent, 59% good, and 31% fair.

Notes:

The question items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (poor), 2 (fair), 3 (good), to 4 (excellent).

n (general public) = 59; n (editors) = 347

More than half of the online local news users (52%) thought the website that they visited most frequently gave them a greater voice in community conversation, 40% did not think so, and nine percent either were not sure or did not know. In comparison, majority of the editors (84%) thought their newspapers' websites gave them a greater voice in community conversation.

When asked "Do you think your website gives you a bigger part in guiding news decision?" 30% of the users said yes, 60% said no, and ten percent either were not sure or did not know. As for the editors, 59% agreed that their newspapers' website gave them a bigger part in guiding news decisions.

Furthermore, 46% of the users believed that the website gave them a different relationship between journalists and the public, whereas 48% thought otherwise, and six percent either were not sure or did not know. Again, more editors (76%) thought the website gave them a different relationship between journalists and the public than did the public.

[General Public]

Of the 210 respondents who had access to the Internet but did not go online for local news, one third (33%) said they preferred other sources such as television or newspaper for local news, 11% reported that there was no local news online available to them, 11% did not like computers or the Internet, nine percent thought it was not convenient, and eight percent said they did not have time to go online for local news.