The data set for the report is self-selected - in that the contributors responded to an open call to answer surveys or to be interviewed. Many of the sites represented in the J-Lab report are familiar names to ePluribus Media readers - as some of them have been interviewed here (ibrattleboro!, munciefreepress as two examples) or have been co-participants at Media Giraffe in Amherst, Memphis, or most recently in Washington, DC.

The report is divided into several chapters and basically covers 1) content; 2) staffing and 3) funding, though these are not how the chapters themselves are labeled or organized ( the chapter titles are actually: 1-The Big Picture; 2-Mapping Citizen Media Models; 3-Creating Content; 4-Building Interest; 5-Making Money; 6-Defining Success).

From my first reading - and I definitely plan on a second more careful read - I took away these observations of what they are saying, observations that don't always jive with what I know some of our fellow citj sites are doing:

Content

According to many of the respondents and compilers of the study, most though certainly not all, citizen (non paid) contributors provide "value add" content. This type of content includes factual snippets, first person narratives, photos, and short tidbits. According to the compilers and the report, the citizen generated content rarely includes reported news that tells a story with a beginning, middle and end or involves original "door knocking, phone calling, and research," or addresses the famed "who, what, when, where, how and why" of journalism.

According to this "definition," citizen journalists do, however, add information that they casually encounter and of which they have personal knowledge. This observation alone points to one of the defining distinctions of ePluribus Media where our folks do in fact make phone calls, travel to talk to sources, issue FOIA requests, interview news makers, and dig deeply into public records. But I also have to add that many of the hyperlocal sites do this as well, and, in fact... so do some of the best bloggers -- Juan Cole as just one well known example.

From the report:

What stands out in this list of "what do citizens contribute" compiled by the J-Lab folks is what J-lab chose to leave out -- hard news. Somehow, that seems a glaring oversight as there are indeed many citizen media hyperlocal sites that do hard news... For one, CTNewsJunkie.

Staffing

The report also addressed what I loosely call "staffing." Issued before the DC Media event, it seemed to "preference" the combo-mix of "professional journalist" with the "amateur" - the pro-am model espoused by Jay Rosen in his New Assignment. However, it must be noted that this model was vehemently rejected by many of the participants in Washington, DC and in fact, by the end of the two days, one the organizers admitted that the term might need to be retired, especially after Faye Anderson (Anderson@large) in the closing round session, expressed her distain at being viewed as an amateur and as a $40.00 tip-able replacement for a "professional journalist."

Almost all the sites, with the exception of the few begun by legacy news organizations (the slumbering giants awaken) function on the elbow grease of one, two or three people and the content provide from as few as 6 individuals. (Here's where ePluribus Media again is different as we function on the volunteer elbow grease of many more than merely three folks - and content is provided by many more than that!)

Some of the sites highlighted in the study, such as H2otown, have almost all of their content generated by one or two people. Others, such as Village Soup (both the Knox County and the Waldo County sites) actually run weekly training programs to help the content generators learn how to "do the news gathering and writing."

Funding

Few if any of the home grown sites are sustained truly as for profit ventures (that's definitely the arena that the awakened slumbering giants are lumbering into -- in some cases, in rather nimble fashion). On the citizen media side (or citmedia, as J-Lab abbreviates it), because operating costs are so low, many are funded by the out of pocket generosity of the founder and the contributions of the many hands of volunteer labor. A few sites have funding from grants or foundations, and a couple are supported by legacy news organizations.

The recent impetus behind traditional media's drive into the hyperlocal movement is powered by the desire to recapture the ad revenue of the local businesses and communities that they had previously abandoned back when the media merged in to centrally controlled and operated comglomerates too big to notice neighborhoods and rural areas. But someone woke up to the revenues lost. So the next push is now back into the local markets to recapture those local ad sales.

For Citizen Media, the incentive from the community activists and news junkies who want to serve the news needs of the geographic communities that the big corporation have ceded is not at odds whith local ad reveneue. So look for the little guys to push for local ads, essentially competing with the traditional media.

In closing, the J-Lab Fad or Future of News report focused on measures of success. Again, from the report:

I don't know if these quotations are truly representive, but the J-lab study was based on interviews and responses a year ago (from summer 2006 for the most part) ... and much has changed.