Interesting story today in the Washington Post (”Storming the News Gatekeepers“) where the debate over whether citizen journalists are really journalists or not.

“The term ‘citizen journalist’ has an Orwellian ring to it,” says Andrew Keen, author of “The Cult of the Amateur,” who’s criticized the Web 2.0-Wikipedia world, where everyone can become their own editors.

“People are becoming Big Brother, either with a camcorder or a keyboard, and following the candidates around. It’s ridiculous. You can’t just be a great journalist, the same way you can’t be a great chef or a great soccer player.”

“Journalists,” he continues, “follow a set of standards, a code of ethics. Objectivity rules. That’s not the case with citizen journalists.

How interesting: “Objectivity rules.”

It’s my belief that objectivity will be the eventual downfall of print newspapers. They are trying to incorporate more and more “citizen journalism” into their daily broadsheets only to find that no one is reading them. People want to know the opinions of other people. It is the basis of communication as we know it today.

I would argue that “citizen journalists” ARE the real journalists, and that newspaper journalists abiding by the AP Style Book, quoting three sources for every story, and remaining objective are the dinosaurs of our new Internet age. Wake up editors, people can do what you do and people listen.