Huffpo Changing Its Rules for Citizen Journos

The Huffington Post is once again ramping up its citizen journalism efforts, this time to cover the spate of populist/conservative tea parties planned for tax day. But the next batch of aspiring Mayhill Fowlers will have to behave a little more like journalists.

Fowler, you'll recall, was the 61-year-old teacher who almost single-handledly raised Huffpo's Off the Bus election-reporting project to prominence by obtaining unguarded quotage from Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at campaign events. In both cases, Fowler failed to ID herself as a Huffpo contributor, leading to a heated debate in the blogosphere over the ethics of citizen journalism.

At the time, Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism professor who was co-publisher of Off the Bus, defended Fowler, saying, among other things, that she occupied a different "moral universe" than professional journalists. I disagreed, saying Fowler had, in effect, acted dishonestly -- posing as a supporter when she was really acting as a reporter. Rosen accused me of having a "guild mentality" that was out of step with the evolving nature of online journalism.

Sorry, Jay, but Huffpo seems to have come around to my point of view. As it prepares to roll out its new citizen-journalism project, Eyes and Ears, the site is drawing up a new set of contributor guidelines to replace the "Citizen Journalism Publishing Standards" issued last week for the benefit of the 1,800 or so volunteers who have signed up to cover the tea parties. While there's nothing in the current guidelines requiring contributors to identify themselves before soliciting quotes, a spokesman says the finalized guidelines will, in fact, include such a requirement -- guild mentality or no.