I define citizen journalism to be any sort of writing about matters of significance beyond the self performed by individuals not paid for their work. With this definition in mind, I find Quora to be a compelling example of citizen journalism. Quora is a question and answer website that allows users to submit questions of interest and categorize them, request that certain individuals answer specific questions, and, of course, answer questions themselves. This model is not completely novel – it was tried for the first time about a decade ago by Yahoo Answers, but Quora has managed to attain an unprecedented level of quality, presumably by employing more sophisticated spam detection algorithms and by targeting educated social networks.

In my mind, one of the great merits of Quora is that it provides individual narratives about topics that are most often spoken about in generalizations. One of my favorite questions involved the intelligence of former U.S. president George W. Bush. A former White House staffer wrote an answer describing Bush’s careful analysis of a report about the progress made in space exploration during his tenure and his identification of errors made by experts on the topic. Most popular articles about Bush’s supposed stupidity focus on a few public gaffes, such as his mispronunciation of the word “nuclear”; rarely do we hear such intimate personal stories about public figures. A similarly intimate story was written by a man whose business was based in the World Trade Center at the time of the 9/11 attacks. He describes the horror of hearing of the deaths of some of his colleagues, trying to account for all of his employees, and talking on the phone to the families of some of the deceased.

Another example of quality content on Quora is that which is targeted to small interest groups. For example, many users of Quora are software engineers. One of the most popular types of specialized content is therefore descriptions of the interview processes at top software companies. Although these descriptions are written by employees and thus likely paint a rosier than deserved picture of the interviews, they often provide important details that help candidates better prepare for them. Writers generally elaborate upon question types, number of interviews, and emphasis on cultural versus technical fit. Their answers provide a personal touch to a process that can otherwise seem impersonal and intimidating.

In sum, Quora connects people with niche knowledge and an interest in sharing it to those who are looking for it. Writers on Quora generally do not have an incentive to start blogs because it is unlikely that those seeking their expertise will be able to locate their blogs from among the millions of others on the Web, even with the help of Google. By keeping content within Quora, authors can rely on Quora’s algorithms for understanding users to connect them with the right audiences. In addition, by submitting questions, users can elicit knowledge from others who did not even realize they had it or did not previously have a conscious interest in sharing it.