As a social media "specialist," I spend a lot of time looking at a wide variety of web sites. As a former PR media expert (and forever a media junky at heart), I spend an even larger amount of time on MSM and CGM news sites. Like a lot of people my age (and younger...and older, too, I bet!) the internet is my default news source.

Here's where I think the news media are going wrong online. Too many bells and whistles. Yes, give me digital video on your site. Do not try to make your site into myspace. I don't need another hub. I don't need to social network on a news site. I just want the news. I want it in real time, I want links to wire stories, I want celebrity gossip, I may want to leave a comment but I don't want to stay and do a mashup. I don't want to shop on my news site. I don't want to auction something off there. And frankly, should news entities be offering services like this that are actually news makers? God knows there are enough Ebay stories out there about crazy items for sale - how ethical is it for news entities to now offer services that may *become* news? Selling local artists or designers' wears and also reviewing them? Who will now fairly report consumer interest stories? Will it be citizen journalists crashing the party and now conducting embarrassing investigations on mainstream media personalities?

Sounds fishy to me.

Maybe I'm old fashioned. Maybe this is what the next generation wants from news entities? But the way I see it, citizen journalism gained audience and credibility as traditional media took a beating for unethical practices like airing VNR's without disclosure that the news segment was a PR tool, paid spokespeople shilling on news and morning shows and more and more reporters like the infamous Jayson Blair who fabricated sources and filed fiction.

Shouldn't traditional media be more carefully drawing the line rather than help blur it?