Citizen journalists make new inroads into political reporting

Stuck with rising competition from Internet-mediated news, traditional media have been reaching out to Web-savvy citizen journalists to expand their online audiences. But only this year have major television networks and their web affiliates begun carving out reporting slots for nonprofessionals on one of their marquee topics: the presidential election. The trend is surfacing even as heightened competition between traditional media and citizen media strains relations between professionals and amateurs, who lack formal training in journalism standards and often publish material without a rigorous vetting process.