The Washington Post had an interesting column by writer Leslie Walker on ‘citizen journalism’. You can read more about the article here. The article mentions the advertising opportunity for local, grassroots supported websites. For me, much of this article sounded like earlier days of online community building. Someones gotta crack the local ad model, why shouldn’t it be homegrown news sites?
Leslie also mentions the old Sidewalk business model. Consumer generated news and newspapers feel more genuine than Sidewalk did. Instead of trying to market a brand, there’s actually some value being delivered! I think a forerunner of the local community was the Blacksburg Electronic Village — the community network for Blacksburg, Virginia.
BTW, The Media Center’s Andrew Nachison and Dale Peskin are up for an award for The Fast 50 (Fast Company magazine’s search for "ordinary people doing extraordinary things"). The nomination: We Erased the Lines Separating Media and Society.
The Media Center has been involved in participatory journalism for some time through vehicles like the ‘We Media’ project, CYBERJOURNALIST.NET, and the MediaMorphosis conference.