The general objection to crowdsourcing stems from this identity crisis as well as other fears that are increasingly irrational. I’ll give an example. A good friend of mine manages the website at a small but well-respected magazine. He has pushed for more interactive elements, such as comments and discussion boards, but to no avail. There’s a real fear in publishing, which is best summed up by an editor’s response to his suggestion to add comments: “But… what if they say something stupid?”

Journalism can’t really move forward if writers and editors are still swayed by these fears. I wish I could say that this shift in philosophy could be easily achieved, but I think quite the opposite is true. The central message to these holdouts might be that journalists aren’t giving up the nobility of their profession when they provide faster and more responsive ways for reader-participants to interact with content online. As Assistant Director of a Master’s program focusing on teaching students how to create and manage online communities, I feel that there should be an increased professional focus on how social media are integrated online, not just an afterthought.