So fine, eliminate the label of journalist. Citizens can listen. Citizens can talk. Citizens can share. Citizens can publish. When they hear something newsworthy, citizens don’t need to go running to flacks to make sure it’s OK to repeat what they heard. In that case, I’d prefer to have citizens telling me what happens. They are less beholden than journalists. They don’t care about the rules. They care about the news. That’s what happened in Off the Bus’ story. If it had been a journalist hearing what she heard, would she have run to the flack to get a cleaned-up version, as Tomasky suggests? Would she have kept it secret because that’s what his rules said? Or would she have reported it, as Off the Bus did?