Standards and principles of Citizen Journalism

The answer to this question depends on one's defintion of citizen journalism. If one interprets citizen journalism as regular everyday citizens who adminster websites,blogs,or other forms of communication to communicate with the genral public. In which case, i think that there are yet to clear or identified standards or principles that those journalists can abide by. Therefore in this case, these citizens are free to produce anything they would like most notably their opinions. On the other hand, if one thinks that the definition of citizen journalism can also be applied to grass roots media organizations and non for profits, a different situation arises. In this case, I would argue that the same standards and principles of Journalism can also apply to the grass roots media. Principles such as an obligation to the truth, loyalty to the public, and the need to verify any piece of information before reporting it.
A citizen interested in any given social or political matter, can create a blog or a website to help communicate and report on what they deem important ideas and issues. In this case this person is not obligated to follow the standards and principes of Journalism.
A grass roots news organization thats not affiliated with any major news network or corporation but operates with the same capabilities,in my opinion, has to follow the elements of journalism.