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Citizen journalism has a lot of attributes — but its mainstreaming can be messy. Case in point: A spelling-challenged attack on Denver gazillionaire Phil Anschutz published earlier today on NowPublic, a Canadian citizen-journalism site that (ahem) Anschutz’s Examiner.com bought just over two months ago.
“Who is Phil Anschutz?,” credited to a writer who goes by CJist, looks askance at a number of Anschutz’s conservative associations and values, declaring that “his Examiner.com reveals the same-old-shit media diat [sic] on their screens that America (Oh, my Canada!) has grown used to like foxes do rabbit on their menu.” Moreover, he seems to view the purchase as a sign that citizen journalism has now become just another commodity. “Is Philip Anschutz a paragon for leading the future of citizen journalism and one of its brightest constellations of citizen journalists at NowPublic?” he wonders. “Or could this be a moniker that CJ is dead or dieing [sic], and consumers consuming consumers is now big business — $25 million reaped by NowPublic.”
Well, at least no one from the home company has ordered the post be removed, so as not to annoy NowPublic’s new owner. Not yet, anyhow.
