"Oh, what will we do if the readers demand to have a voice in how things are covered?" some in the industry have asked, wringing their hands and wiping the sweat from their brows.

Well, not to put too fine a point on it: Get over yourselves. This is the United States of America, where freedom of speech and of the press are guaranteed in the Constitution.

If editors and reporters are smart and agile, they will adapt and they will bring a new sense of immediacy to their Web productions. Readers of The Salt Lake Tribune have been treated to a redesigned Internet presence that does almost everything but leap tall buildings at a single bound.

This is the country born of pamphleteers and radicals - urging the dumping of tea in the harbor and such.

So, like gossiping across the fence with the neighbor, some of this World Wide Web-based citizen journalism will continue. But, beware, much of this citizen journalism harks back to those earlier pamphleteers by including not only some news but whole shovels full of opinion.

And, editors and reporters should remember that newspaper readers already have a say in how the news is covered. They tell newspapers on a regular basis what is right and what is wrong about coverage through letters to the editor.

At the handful of newspapers with a reader advocate or public editor, readers call and e-mail and write constantly, telling us when they think we have strayed from the path and when we have failed to cover an issue or a company or a person thoroughly or fairly. And this reader comment has an effect on how we cover stories and what stories we cover.

This citizen journalism movement - coming to fruition when the Internet became easier and easier to use - has its good and bad points.

When the subway was bombed in London, the only photos available immediately after the event were from citizens' cell phones. Dark and murky with little definition, those photos were a good example of citizen journalism.

After terrorist attacks continued across the world, some citizen journalism sites grew that wove intricate conspiracy theories about Big Oil and Big Uncle Sam and how portions of the U.S. spy system may have bombed the World Trade Center to start wars in portions of the Far and Middle East. That's a bad thing about citizen journalism.

What separates citizen journalists from trained journalists is a special skill set - the ability to gather, write, document and present the news.

As expressed in an unsigned article on editorsweblog.org, sponsored by the world editors forum:

"Citizen journalists are part of the family, but different. And this difference depends on what journalists and bloggers call 'collective intelligence.'

"For a journalist, a newsroom is the expression of collective intelligence with horizontal links between colleagues and fact-checkers, but also with vertical relationships from the basic journalist to the editor-in-chief.

"For a blogger the network hates vertical acquaintances and will always give the priority to horizontal linking and fact-checking."

The biggest problem with citizen journalists, however, seems to be sources. Journalists call and e-mail their news sources constantly in order to create stories that are balanced and nuanced with the historical perspective needed to understand an issue. Most citizen journalists thus far have used the work of professional journalists as a jumping off point to add opinion.

And, as Nicholas Lemann noted in a New Yorker article, "Journalism Without Journalists":

"Great citizen journalism is like the imagined Northwest Passage - it has to exist in order to prove that citizens can learn about public life without the mediation of professionals. But when one reads it, after having been exposed to the buildup, it is nearly impossible not to think, 'This is what all the fuss is about?' "

Will this phenomenon grow and prosper? Probably the opinion and review portion will. If and when any of the dozens of Web sites dedicated to citizen journalism can develop some citizen journalists who can separate fact from opinion is anyone's guess.

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* THE READER ADVOCATE'S phone number is 801-257-8782. Write to the Reader Advocate, The Salt Lake Tribune, 90 S. 400 West, Suite 700, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101. reader.advocate@sltrib.com

* 6: Number of people upset over Holly Mullen leaving

* 13: Number of people upset over sports coverage

* 22: Number of people who hate sticky note ads