Speaking of citizen journalism

You’ve probably noticed that there hasn’t been a lot of news on Coastsider this week. At least, I hope you have. I’m in in Amherst, Massachusetts, speaking at a conference on citizen journalism.  I’m out here with a bunch of A-list journalism bloggers, j-school professors, newspaper executives , and (first and foremost) people who are doing in their communities what Coastsider is doing in ours. It’s exciting and inspiring to be among so many people who are moving in the same direction to remake community news. I expect to return with a new sense of purpose and lots of new ideas.

I’ve got a number of stories in the queue that I hope to post from the road, and I’ll keep moderating comments, but Coastsider will be relatively quiet for the next few days.

I’m on a couple of panels this afternoon, including one called "Can Free Media Sustain Democracy?" It would be an understatement to say I’m optimistic.