Inside PBS Blog

Our colleague Mark Glaser, whose widely read MediaShift blog on the "digital media revolution" is hosted here on PBS.org, has an excellent rundown on several "semi-pro" journalism projects focused on the presidential campaigns.

As Glaser explains:

Each of these projects provides an alternative to mainstream media coverage, combining the ground work of average citizens or inexperienced journalists with editorial and production expertise of professional journalists. Rather than being lone citizen journalists, these semi-pros are given the tools and direction to craft personal reports that cover topics not typically explored in campaign reporting.

Glaser evaluates the output of three efforts:

Purplestates.tv, in which five citizen journalists do reality TV style video reports
MTV's "Street Team" of 51 mobile journalists
the liberal blog Huffington Post's 1,800 (!) volunteers who contribute to its Off the Bus project

It's an excellent update on how citizens who are not trained as professional journalists can contribute to political coverage--and help shape other citizens' views of candidates, elections and the political process.