Happy Belated Anniversary NowPublic and ScienceDave!

I realized something today - it has been more than one full year since I began posting to NowPublic.  If there is one thing that remains certain here, it is that many great (and not so great) contributors have come and gone, but few have stayed.

That said, instead of going into "Why I write here" or "Why I think citizen journalism is good/bad/average/passable/recommendable/etc." type ruminations, I want to thank all of those who have stuck around as long as I have - mostly because they are the ones who have helped, pushed, and prodded me (knowingly and unknowingly) into improving what I do around NowPublic.

I think it is in building strong, successful communities, like the budding group of news hounds at NowPublic, that participatory journalism makes its mark on the future of news sharing.  In my opinion, the value of the average citizen has been deeply under-appreciated by journalists.  Although many folks are unable to wield their prose as poetically as they might like, it is the individual's experience and knowledge that provide elegance (and novelty) to this thing we call news.

I sincerely hope the current journalism academy looks long and hard at projects like NowPublic: they should not solely be used to gather sources and exploit online communities, but rather to learn from and interact with the community users.

Well, it looks like I ruminated after all - cheers NowPublic!