An example of a local story that did make national news is the infamous "Jena 6" story a few years ago in Jena, Louisiana, involving racial tensions, intimidation, and violence at the local high school. Once the story "went national," the issue of racial tensions in tiny Jena (pop. about 3,000) was featured in such prominent media as National Public Radio and the BBC. A march in September 2007 by about 20,000 people put even more attention on the small town in central Louisiana.

The most recent issue of SPJ's Quill magazine puts the spotlight on the problems two local journalists faced in covering the issue for their communities. The accounts of those two young reporters - one for a local newspaper, the other for a local TV station - provide a small glimpse of the issues community journalists can face when locally bad news makes national headlines.

Among some of the problems they faced: National network news stations use video from the local station but don't give credit; national reporters pumping local reporters for info while the local reporters were trying to do their own jobs; and bitter resentment toward "the media" in the little town where those local reporters have to work. One reporter claims to have received death threats, dead animals placed in her car, and a noose hung from her door.

That one case illustrates an important dynamic in the relationships between the vast majority of professional journalists who work for community media and the high-profile minority who work for national media. Large media are prone to "parachute journalism," in which they swarm to small communities to cover newsworthy incidents only for a short time, giving those journalists little or no way to develop rapport within the community. Local media are the exact opposite -- they have established rapport in their communities, and large-scale, newsworthy events can cause serious strains on reporters' relationships with the community. Then, after the national media pull out, any poor behavior by national journalists remains in the community's memory, resulting in resentment and hostility that is often transferred to the local journalists.

It's always a good idea for journalists of all stripes to tread lightly into new territory, but national journalists would do well to be much more concerned about how their actions can affect their peers working in community media.

• First, community journalism is journalism that privileges community values over professional values. That is, community journalists are sensitive (but not necessarily deferential) to the wants and needs of the communities they serve. That affects everything from news judgment (what is or is not worth covering) to making tough ethical decisions (about publishing information that would be embarrassing to people who live in the community).

• Second, community journalism respects, and provides, what is generally called "micronews" -- the minutia of community life. Examples include: bowling-league scores, elementary-school cafeteria menus, activities at senior-citizen centers, Honor Roll listings, and so on. Although not at all glamorous from a journalism standpoint, such information is very useful to members of communities, and community media would be foolish not to be the most trusted source for such information.

• Third, community journalism is generally quite personal. Whereas an MSM reporter might spend a few hours interviewing a person and never talk to that person again, a community journalist is likely to run into the people she or he writes about (particularly in small towns). That can be both intimidating and helpful; intimidating because community journalists have little insulation from sources who are angry about how they are portrayed in news stories, but helpful in that it encourages reporters to be much more sensitive about how they treat sources.

The above traits are common to all community media, from small-town newspapers to Web sites that serve virtual communities spanning the globe.

They're wrong.

'Community journalism' as a distinct branch of the journalism industry is at least 50 years old, stemming back to a course (and textbook) of that name taught by Kenneth R. Byerly at UNC-Chapel Hill in the 1950s. But in practice, community journalism goes back much, much farther -- in fact, an argument could be made that community journalism is as old as journalism itself.

Which begs the question, "What is 'community journalism,' anyway'"?

As several journalism scholars define it, community journalism is journalism that serves distinct communities, typically small towns, suburbs, or urban neighborhoods, but also communities of identity (ethnic communities, or GLBT communities, etc.), of avocation (farmers, dentists, firefighters), or of short-term goals (i.e., special interest groups). Generally, these communities are "small" in some sense, and have certain aspects that set them apart from larger populations. The news media that serve those communities also tend to be small, but more importantly, the journalists who produce those media tend to have fairly strong connections to the communities they serve.

That is very different from, for example, the largest daily newspaper in a major city, or a national television or radio news network. Those media may have more prestige, popularity, and influence in the regional and national arenas, but at the community level, they have very little affect. Even a poorly edited small-town weekly newspaper can have a tremendous impact on community life in a small town than can CNN or USAToday.

When it comes to numbers, "CJ" clearly and unambiguously dominates the industry. In the U.S. alone, for example, about 97 percent of all newspapers are classified as "community" newspapers, or newspapers with circulations below 50,000. Most are not dailies, but weeklies, twice weeklies, etc. All together, those newspapers have a combined circulation of nearly 109 million, about three times as much as the combined circulation of the 220-or-so daily newspapers with circulations above 50,000. That's why we call community journalism "the bottom of the iceberg" -- it may not be the part of the industry that gets much attention, but it is by far the biggest part of the industry.

That is not to say "CJ" is either better or worse than metropolitan, regional, or national/global journalism. Rather, the "two journalism" have different goals, different obligations, different strengths, and different limitations.

I'll get into those differences with later posts. For now, understand that the biggest difference between community journalism and so-called "mainstream journalism" is point of view.