Quite unintentionally, Ted Koppel explains the logic of citizen journalism:

If something happens in [a foreign country], I heard a former network news president say other day, we can always jet someone in. That is a profoundly telling statement. Instead of investing in someone on the scene who is familiar with the political and cultural landscape, who can give us all a sense of what’s going to happen, and who can provide us with a sense of context when it does, news is being re-defined as “that which has happened most recently” and which may pique the interest of a particular demographic group.

I’m talking CJ-of-the-far-future, of course. We’re not there yet, not by a long shot.