1. I used the term “scrapbook news” mainly because it was the term used in Josh’s original article, and also to differentiate between items like rec league titles and state fair contests vs. user-submitted news reports such as accounts of a traffic accident or other “serious” news. And my post was meant to be a bit more about print than online, since I think there are different quality expectations from consumers for those two mediums. I think users are more tolerant of “amateurish” stuff online than in print, so my concern with the amount of editing isn’t as great for online content.

2. I think the two criteria you mention are definitely good and necessary for online user-submitted content. Delineation between user-submitted content and staff-produced content should be clear.

3. As for how much control is enough, I think it ultimately comes down to this: As you said, for user-submitted content to be worthwhile for a news organization, you would not be able to do individual editing and filtering. So for user-submitted content to work, news orgs have to give up some of that control, which means there will always be some level of risk for something like the fake Steve Jobs iReporter story, or on a less sinister level, just more amateurish content, to get through along with some pretty good content. And even with clear delineation of user content vs. staff content, when something like the fake Jobs story happens, the news org’s reputation does take a hit, as CNN did. But there are also a lot of positives that come with user content, like community engagement and getting free content on things you otherwise would not have the resources to cover. So I think it’s up to the individual news organizations to decide for themselves whether they feel the positives outweigh the negatives, how many checks they want to put in place for user-submitted content, and what level of amateurish content they feel comfortable with disseminating under their brand, in print and online. Whatever level of control — and resulting consequences — they can live with is the level that’s “enough”.

But individually editing and filtering scrapbook news would simply be too time consuming to make the venture worthwhile. If you’re letting the community write the news articles, why not let the same community edit the news articles?

User-submitted news – there’s not really a need to call it “scrapbook news” anymore. That term came about for the printed newspaper, which we aren’t talking about right now – needs to criteria:

1. Clearly marked as user-submitted, with appropriate wording to both protect against libel and distinguish it from professional content.
2. Can be edited, rated and discussed by the reading community.

Do you think that would be enough control?