Why citizen journalism sounds much better in theory

Citizen journalism has had a great press recently and from reading some of the breathless commentary you might be forgiven for thinking that the future news landscape will consist solely of press releases and netizen comments in 140 characters or less.

One of the catalysts for thinking that micro blogs are taking over the media space occupied by papers, TV screens and websites is the role it played in July's Wenzhou train crash. Even China Daily got onboard and noted in a cover story how micro blogs "broke the news, joined the rescue work, helped survivors and families of victims and monitored the authorities".

As if micro blogs hadn't done enough already, they also "took on the mantle of the fourth estate" - leaving us poor hacks out in the cold, presumably.