"Twitter can't replace boots on the ground journalism."

So said Stuart Hughes, World Affairs Producer for the BBC.

We were in an open debate session of the BBC's Social Media Summit on Friday. We were in a packed upstairs conference room at the BBC's White City building, full of 150 tweeting reporters (and no wifi).

Stuart should know more than most people about boots on the ground - he covered the war in Northern Iraq in 2003 for the BBC. He remarked to the room that social media as a newsgathering tool is inherently weak, as its use is still niche, especially in the developing world. How could distributed newsgathering operations like Andy Carvin's (or Citizenside) hope to compete?

I think we can. Easily. But it depends for what kind of story.

In cases of elite, contained stories, where access to power or expert information is crucial, I do agree: pro teams have an edge. For instance, the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case is a model of one where distributed reporting can't add much. There are a few characters, mostly senior political, law-enforcement and legal figures. There are limited plot points; a few courtroom appearances, and discussions behind closed doors. This is the classic sort of "big politics" story for which the old-school media-as-gatekeeper model is still valid. When the news story is all about what one single person is doing or saying, there's not much a million reporters can add. You can't squeeze a million reporters into a press conference.

Stories where expert knowledge is required are another example. When Andy Carvin got wind of Israeli munitions supposedly being used in Libya, he fielded the question to his thousands of Twitter followers. Within a few short hours, he had the answer. Stuart Hughes of the BBC called a contact at the MoD, and had an answer within ten minutes.

Social Media Win

In distributed stories and issues, though, social media coverage comes into its own.

We've gotten an incredible response from Citizenside members in Spain during the recent protests and elections there.

In Ireland, our members were there when the Queen's arrival sparked street fighting. In Louisiana, our members have shown us the damage done by the rising waters of the Mississippi. In Alabama, they showed us what their neighborhood looked like after a tornado hit.

Stories like these may not involve powerful politicos or exclusive access, but they're big news, too. They touch thousands or even millions of people directly. And now each of those people can be a reporter. Sometimes news is news because it happens to people, not because someone somewhere thinks something should be important. Distributed citizen news contains authentic stories reported as they are witnessed and experienced. Yes, there's no way we can guarantee objectivity. But objectivity an unobtainable ideal anyhow, valuable in the striving rather than the execution. Meanwhile, authenticity and transparency are invaluable, and that's what we build our editorial ethos on.

Maybe for the moment, smart phones and social media use are niche. But TV, radio and even reading and writing took a while to reach most people in the world. And each media innovation saturates the population faster than the one before it.

At Citizenside, we're building the platform that will enable citizen journalists and eyewitnesses from around the world collaborate and share news stories in the best tradition of journalism: authentic, transparent, connected.

Sometimes, social media news has the advantage over TV news. You can see a video of the whole session on CoJo's YouTube channel, and a summary of the whole day on the CoJo site. See also the BBC's interview with Andy Carvin on his Twitter-powered distributed newsgathering operation.