Hi everyone, I'm Stuart Clarke (or Disco Stu or Maverick depending on where you meet me), Community Editor at Flightglobal.com, and I'm here to convince you that this is the most exciting time to work in journalism. Okay, so maybe I am mixing up exciting with uncertain, but to me this is a fascinating period in journalism where, as Tim Relf suggests, the journalist can be free to bring in their personality to interact directly with their users, using the latest technologies to inform in new and exciting ways.
My job revolves around daily interaction with our audience and this relationship can be exciting and exasperating in equal measure, but it can never be characterised as dull. Working as a Community Editor is no different than speaking to people down the pub with similar interests so you have to be open to criticism, transparent in the debate and always promoting collaboration.
For too long there has been an assumption that we as news providers are the authority, that user generated content (a term that I think sounds like some kind of science experiment) is dismissed as inaccurate hullabaloo that exists outside or on the fringes of the news agenda.
The community though is that agenda; they are our audience that buys our products or are affected by the latest news. You don't write things in the hope that one person out there will like it, so what is the problem with listening to the hopes and concerns of the people you are providing for to form what you write about.
