In 1945 when the Hutchins Report came out, one of its recommendation was to move toward a professionalization of journalism. Too many reporters were just people from any walk of life who wrote about what they saw. The report urged colleges to set up J schools and to work to get reporters to be professionals.

Today, how many reporters come from any walk of life but the college-educated, skewed toward upper middle class (think of some of the J schools, if only to consider what it costs to become a college-educated journalist–at Medill or Columbia University??) So now, journalists do lack a diversity and no longer represent wide swaths of the public.

Enter “citizen reporters” that toggle the wisdom of the Hutchins report, and you have a unsettled journalism and news community.

Steve Outing writes about this issue and offers suggestions and a good analysis of existing efforts–except he has left out citj efforts that don’t originate in the states, like Ohmynews. Can ‘Citizen Journalists’ Really Produce Readable Content?