The internet provides great opportunities for citizen journalists who seek to help spread further social awareness. However, the internet also has those companies that run scams. The apparent aim of such companies is to dupe unsuspecting internet users of money.

Could DigitalJournal.com be another one of these kinds of companies?

Wikipedia indicates that Toronto-based DigitalJournal.com is a news network using citizen reporters ("Digital Journalists") who contribute from 140 countries around the world.

Here’s an apparent great scam for you, that I just learned about from a writer who sought to contribute articles to DigitalJournal.com.

Are you an aspiring scammer who seeks to develop your own online newspaper which develops from the contributions of “citizen journalists”?

If so, you may want to learn from this apparent clever scheme.

First you create a professional-looking website. Indeed, Digital Journal is a professional looking website. Then, you use that professional looking website to attract citizen journalists. You then create a scheme for these writers to compete against one another. In so doing, the writers will not notice that they are often being paid less than $2.00 per submitted article.

However, aspiring scammers should take note of the following “twist“.

Get writers to submit their content over weeks. If you seek to run a company like DigitalJournal.com, your online newspaper should then arbitrarily declare one or more of articles submitted from a writer as “controversial”.

If you seek to emulate DigitalJournal.com, then simply refuse to pay that writer. But, then, keep all of that writers' content on your 'online' newspaper site.

Having presented “the carrot with a stick” to writers, your online newspaper, like DigitalJournal.com, can then keep all the money.

Brilliant scam, isn’t it. The writer is denied financial compensation for being “too controversial”. But the site then keeps all the writers' work on their site, and can then continue to “pocket” all advertising revenue/royalties from writers‘ work.

“Buyer beware” is an expression in the English language. Could “writer beware” be a useful expression which could apply to DigitalJournal.com?

DigitalJournal.com may aspire to become some sort of "news version"of Wikipedia.  However, in my view, DigitalJournal lacks the kind of accountability which Wikipedia seeks to provide. 

In Wikipedia, disputes are handled by teams of contributors.  It is apparent that DigitalJournal.com can be perceived as a fascistic organization run by a Toronto in-group clique which appears to aspire to no such accountability.