"Citizen journalism" — journalism with the participation of its audience and community — is an ideal easy to support, but it's not so easy to build a business based on idealism. Dan Gillmor, ex-journalist and leading promoter of citizen journalism, citing his lack of business skills, wisely jettisoned Bayosphere, the Bay Area community journalism site, to Backfence earlier this year. Now Backfence is "ceasing operations within the next few days" for all of its communities (the site is still live, but the closure notice is posted on each area's community page).

Backfence, the community journo site where every writer's a "neighbor" — I think that translates as "comrade" — broke out of its Maryland and Virginia circuit to buy the Bay Area's news-by-the-people site, Bayosphere.

Ex-journalist Dan Gillmor is selling citizen-journo site Bayosphere. He says his talent is less, you know, running a business and more "looking at lots of disparate elements and connecting the dots" — which technically means that Dan Gillmor is the Internet. Maybe he should drop the citizen journalism and get back to the, um, real journalism.