I’m not going to link to any offenders, but my consistent observation [*] is that nearly all “citizen journalism” sites fall somewhere between spam blog and crappy community of suckers. If you feel the urge to provide people with a platform to “do” community journalism, don’t. You’re not needed (see below). If you really, really must go ahead, read Evan Prodromou’s seven rules for commercial wikis (which apply to any community site) seven hundred times, then think about it for a long time.
If you feel the need to “do” citizen journalism, stay away from sites that claim they help you “do” citizen journalism. You absolutely do not need them. Instead:
#1. Write on your own blog.
#2. Write on a site of, by, and for some community (check if they are following the seven rules linked above; it should be obvious).
#3. If you want a generic platform, write on Wiki News.
#4. Some reader blogs hosted by established media aren’t that bad, but be careful.
#1. bis. Write on a group blog like Midas Oracle .ORG. 
– Click here to read all the Mike Linksvayer’s blog posts about prediction markets on Midas Oracle.
[*] Mike Linksvayer is the CTO at a non-profit organization in San Francisco (Creative Commons).
APPENDIX: Here are the famous Evan Prodromou’s seven rules for commercial wikis…
#1. Have a noble purpose — e.g., shared knowledge (use a free license), help a community.
#2. Demonstrate value — most interesting example is “carry the torch”; wiki communities can be transient, an entity that keeps focus helps.
#3. Be Transparent.
#4. Extract value where you provide value — most obviously, advertising for hosting.
#5. Be personally involved.
#6. Run with the right crowd — e.g., open source and open content, or you will be suspect of being a crowdsourcer.
For more on commercial wikis, see Mike Linksvayer’s previous blog post: Wikitravel and World66 both win.
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