The line line between journalists and citizens

Jeff Jarvis discusses the case of Mayhill Fowler, who ,as reported on this blog earlier in the week ,broke a story about Barack Obama which made the headlines nationally in the States.

Jeff comments on Mike Tomasky's piece on comment is free

Was Fowler playing to the rules? in this case asks

This is where citizen-journalism gets very fuzzy. Traditional journalists learn or hear things all the time that, under the rules of journalism, they can't use, because they heard or learned them in an off-the-record context. A journalist invited into a closed fundraiser - this doesn't happen often, but does from time to time - will be told by aides very clearly that everything is off the record and will presumably abide by that. So if a New York Times or San Francisco Chronicle or Guardian journalist had been inside that event under the terms I describe, the remark in all likelihood would never have become public.

The issue being that Fowler was on the dividing line between a citizen,a campaigner and a journalist.Perhaps the rules have not been made for this scenario yet in the world of citizen journalism.

Jeff agrees

News is what happens and what people witness and what they can now share, with or without journalists. That’s the new rule of the press-sphere: nobody rules.

and continues

what happens when you take away the label journalist and just call the person a witness? Does that person have to live by Tomasky’s rules? Or can that person still tell people what she heard and saw? Isn’t that simply put free speech?