I got a namecheck on Paul Bradshaw and Jon Hickman's podcast.
I'd asked via Twitter: "Will sites like Help Me Investigate will always need some kind of professional journalist/mentor/organiser/news cadre?"
(I could have done with someone like that to sub out the un-needed second 'will')
Here's Paul's reply:
"No is the short answer. The only difference between a professional journalist and a non-professional journalist is that a professional journalist happens to get paid.
"There are lots of examples of outstanding journalism by people who are not paid to be journalists. I'm talking about activism, engaged citizens and creative people.
"The model that we're adopting is that it needs some sort of leadership, for want of a better word, to help shape that community and establish the rules of that community. That's a lesson that the websites have learned - Wikipedia is a great example.
"But I think the idea is that the culture of the website becomes strong enough and the users have advanced to such a point that they can maintain their own culture. We'll need to wait and see if that actually happens."
I think that idea of creating the culture by exhortation and example is really powerful. I used the phrase 'news cadre' in my question. I like it. I'm going to keep it. I think journalists need to become news cadres.
Just to be clear - I don't believe you need a professional journalist to have legitimate journalism. I agree with Paul Bradshaw about that 100%.
But I think there will always be a need for news cadres. Look how groups within communities organise themselves: people come together for a specific purpose, whether it's to set up a bowling club or protest against the closure of a park. They elect people to different tasks. If their work grows, then they employ people to carry out tasks on their behalf.
Online news communities will need things done. Look at this list of skills being asked of online journalists. What percentage of the population has those skills?
News communities need news cadres that have those skills, so that connections can be made, ideas can be presented, infrastructure can be maintained, so that the community can grow and prosper and become more and more effective.