"[1] An increasing number of community newspapers are now owned by large media organizations, although many rural papers are still "mom and pop" operations.
Traditionally, journalists advocate avoiding any real or perceived conflict of interests, which can be anything from refraining from joining community groups, to not pledging money to a candidate they support.
Community journalism, however, encourages the coverage of news that hits close to home, even for the journalist covering the story.
Some philosophers encourage professional journalists to remain independent, whereas others insist on committing to local and generalized communities as a prerequisite for true citizenship.
Loyalty to a community is the inevitable price of acceptance, and the fee is creating sharp conflicts with allegiance to the truth.
The community journalist reporters were required to give readers a background on each perspective and to "write an expository rather than conventional he-said/she-said style."
Known as the Public Life Team, they meet with panels of citizens regularly to "tap their thoughts and dreams for the regions' future."
This publication in particular has paved way for other community journalists, mainly due to its experimental nature and eagerness to give reporters the opportunity to brainstorm ideas together.
Residents and volunteers produce a quarterly printed newspaper delivered free to all residential addresses and local businesses in the district of Fitzrovia.
The paper which also has a website and social media network covers issues of concern to residents and small businesses.
According to a Zogby International survey, 70% of Americans say journalism is important to maintaining community quality of life, and 67% say the traditional media are out of touch with what citizens want from their news.
Citizens can not only read news from their local community, with tablets and smart phones, they can also share and post links to stories, comment, or contribute themselves.
They polled 2,251 adults over the age of 18 in both English and Spanish to "explore the role that cell phones and tablet computers play in people's patterns of consuming and contributing to community information.
84% of adult Americans own a cell phone and 47% of that population access local news and information on mobile devices, as it serves an immediate need.
In other words, citizens have not reached the point where they use mobile devices as a primary source to acquire community journalism-related subjects.
[11] It is suggested that news media outlets do not choose to either practice community journalism exclusively or disregard it.
[2] This is because community journalism is on a scale on which data is shown simply in order of magnitude since there is no standard of measurement of differences.