Insert 1: Peter Barron, Director of External Relations, Google

The point here is that there has been a massive democratisation in access to information and the ability to publish information – so everybody these days can be a publisher. What you’ve seen time and time again, is that the very high quality material rises to the top and becomes a trusted brand, alongside the trusted brands that already exist.

Stephen: Peter Barron from Google believes that the best quality blogs will become as trusted as media companies - media brands - which already have a good reputation.

Rob: Very high quality material rises to the top – the best blogs will become as popular as traditional broadcasters or newspapers.

Stephen: Alan Rusbridger is the editor of the Guardian newspaper in the UK. He says that traditional journalists will always be needed to make sense of large amounts of information, something which citizen journalists might not be able to do. He uses the example of Wikileaks.

Insert 2: Alan Rusbridger, Editor, The Guardian

The case of Wikilieaks was an excellent one; 300 million words would have been completely meaningless if it had been dumped on the internet, as well as being completely unsafe. It took months of Guardian, New York Times, Der Spiegel journalists going through and finding the stories, redacting them and making sense of them. So the journalist still has a valuable role as mediator, analyser and finder and verifier of stories.

Stephen: Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian newspaper, who gives the example of Wikileaks, where he says 300 million words, dumped on the internet, would have been completely meaningless if journalists hadn’t been able to go through them.

Rob: To go through them – finding stories and checking them. He says the journalist has a valuable role as mediator, analyser, finder and verifier of stories.

Stephen: Journalists need to check stories – to verify them, to check they are safe to publish and that they are true. Anne McElvoy from the Economist magazine says that citizen journalism hasn’t really been tested yet. It’s a very valuable source when the story is on the street, but not when we, the readers, listeners or viewers, aren’t sure which side we should be on.

Rob: Whose side we should be on - who we support. When it is clear whose side we should be on, citizen journalists are very valuable, but when we don’t really know what’s going on, we need the traditional skills of journalists to analyse material to help us understand. She says ‘we rely on the trade’ - meaning the trade of the traditional journalist.

Insert 3: Anne McElvoy

Citizen journalism hasn’t really been tested yet; we’re writing a lot about it and reflecting on it. But really, what we’ve seen is it being very active and also being a very valuable source, I should say, but in situations where we kind of know, generally, which side we are on. We know that the story is on the street. I think citizen journalism will have a much tougher time when we have situations - which will arise - when we’re really not sure which side should have the upper hand, or, indeed, what’s really going on. And that’s an area where I think you do rely a bit on the old trade to have analysis skills and to help you out there.

Stephen: Anne McElvoy talking about citizen journalists. So, before we go today, Rob – which of those six countries did you guess has the highest internet penetration? That’s the highest percentage of population who are online.

Rob: OK. Well, I said South Korea. Am I right?

Stephen: Actually it’s the UK – followed by South Korea, then Germany, Japan, the US, China and finally India.

Rob: Well I never!

Stephen: And a chance to hear some of the words and phrases we heard in the programme today. Would you mind, Rob?

Rob: OK, we heard: citizen journalism trained social media democratisation to publish media brands to go through them verify hasn’t really been tested yet valuable source

Stephen: Thanks for that, Rob.

Rob: You’re welcome.

Stephen: Well, that’s all we have time for today - we’ll have more "6 Minute English" next time.

Rob: Bye for now! Stephen: Bye!