Steve Boriss, associate director of the Center for the Application of Information Technology at Washington University in St. Louis announced on his blog Thursday that “citizen journalism is dead. Expert journalism is the future.”

Steve Outing, a self-described online media pioneer, journalist/columnist and citizen media entrepreneur, came to the conclusion that relying mainly on user-submitted content is a mistake, which he wrote about in his Editor & Publisher column Monday. Outing's company, the Enthusiast Group, a grassroots media effort made up of five Web sites, folded earlier this month. He wrote about the demise of the group to save other companies from “going through similar business heartache.”

The Enthusiast Group's sites included a site dedicated to climbing, for example, in which a resident expert presided over massive amounts of user-generated content.

“In hindsight, I think we tried to rely too heavily on user-submitted content,” Outing wrote. “Even though a lot of it was really great, the overall experience was weak when compared to, say, reading a climbing or a mountain biking magazine filled with quality professional content throughout ... I'm not saying that user-submitted content isn't worthwhile, let me be clear about that. I am saying that I think you can't rely too much on it. And you need to filter out and highlight the best user content, while downplaying the visibility of the mediocre stuff.”

Boriss, who teaches a class titled The Future of the News at Washington University, has stepped even farther away from citizen journalism, which he wrote will “not be a real movement after all,” in his blog Thursday.

“The problem with citizen journalism is that it tries to force news back to what it was. Actually, worse than it was. It takes the same stale, one-size-fits-all, centre-left, authoritative-tone news model that news consumers are rejecting, then adds large quantities of material from unpaid amateurs who have no particular expertise in reporting, editing, writing, or their topic,” wrote Boriss.

“It also unrealistically expects people who are not 'losers' to do this work for free (a particularly odd expectation coming from your typical minimum-wage-supporting journalist). Citizen journalism seems to serve the wishful-thinking needs of job-fearing journalists, but not the real needs of typical news consumers who would just as soon read quality material without being asked to help.”

Hyperlocal site Backfence.com folded this summer due to “private business matters” the site's founders are not discussing. But its co-founder, Mark Potts, has stated he disagrees with Boriss's assessment that citizen journalism is on its way out, and he believes a business model similar to Backfence could succeed in the future.

“The magic of hyperlocal sites, be they Backfence, other startups, Yahoo Groups or local blogs, is that they provide a forum for community members to share and discuss what's going on around town. The back-and-forth of a good online conversation can be as rich, deep and interesting – or more so – than traditional journalism. In fact, the role of journalists in this process is overrated – except maybe by journalists! The less involved site managers are, aside from lightly moderating the conversation, the better,” Potts wrote in his own blog after Backfence closed.

“Hyperlocal content is really mundane. We heard this criticism all the time. You bet it is – if you're an outsider looking in,” he stated. “To members of the community who actually live with these local issues, it's vitally important. It's precisely that mundane content, and the conversations around it, that brings life to hyperlocal sites.”

Backfence's servers are still running, but content has not been added.

Outing mentioned Backfence and YourHub.com (a similar initiative started by E.W. Scripps that is still running) in his E&P column, noting that content at both sites is pretty bland, consisting mainly of press releases from local groups or local event announcements.

In Backfence's case, “staff did contribute content, but often of the same variety. There was some great content ... but to my eyes the bulk of it was pretty dull,” he wrote. “As destination sites, I don't think that Backfence or YourHub work. My company's sites didn't work, which is why in hindsight I realise that a much higher level of professional content needed to be added into the mix. Quality matters.”

In the future, Boriss mused, the model that will work will combine the “talents of topic experts throughout the web with those who have a knack for aggregating and editing their material to satisfy an audience.” DailyKos.com is an example of how this model is already working, he stated.

“Citizens will be customers, reporters will be experts, and editing will be news outlets’ core competency,” Boriss wrote. “Expert journalism is our future, not because it is good for journalists but because it is good for news consumers.”