Our vision is essentially a summarization of our Values. With time, we intend:

For PeoriaUnited:

We want PeoriaUnited.com to grow into a community of active, concerned citizens, entrepreneurs, activists and citizen journalists.

First and foremost, we aim to be a community that encourages involvement and culture in the Peoria area by providing a venue for public discussion of anything, but also specifically issues that pertain to our area and local issues. We hope to provide strong citizen journalism and open discussion (see our discussion forum).

Eventually, we hope to organization, host, and promote local events. A print publication, local resources and other services are also possibilities as we grow in size and popularity.

For Local Government:

Our vision or local government is be one that accurately represents the will of the people. We want citizens to get more involved with local government by running for office, by discussion local politics, and by letting those we elected know what we think. We support a local and transparent government which is not afraid to do things differently and consider alternative solutions.

For the Community:

Our vision for our community is to create open discussion, a sense of community, and a sense of culture by encouraging: civil, public discourse; citizen journalism and other forms of activism; friendship, courtesy, and respect for one another; public events and meetings.

We’ve established this page to provide a list of the values we have as a group, a well as the values we wish for our government and community to have and support. These values are simply guidelines we hope to follow and hope others will as well.

Within Our Organization:

• Accuracy & Credibility – We aim to provide accurate reporting and news. We want to maintain transparency and credibility. We will never intentionally misreport, mislead, or misrepresent any person, organization, or event. If any errors are brought to our attention they will be corrected in a timely manner. 
  • Regarding citizen journalism: because stories are reported by individuals, PeoriaUnited cannot guarantee their accuracy. We do, however, have guidelines we encourage citizen journalists to follow, which can be viewed here.

• Transparency: Alongside accurate and credible reporting, we aim to be a transparent organization. We are not only straightforward about or purpose and how our organization is run, but we support transparency within reporting. We are opposed to censorship. We will never censor a story, though we reserve the right to remove content that we deem distasteful, misrepresentative, or hateful.

• Activism – We view citizen journalism as a form of activism. We want our community to be involved in reporting the news, but also to be involved in local government, business and social functions. We want to develop a community that cares about their city and the events that happen around them; we want to work together to promote positive change (see “Progress” below). We also support creating a sense of local culture, which is something some, feel Peoria lacks (see “Culture” below). We strongly oppose apathy and feel that activism is the solution.

Within Local Government and Media:

• Progress & Open Discourse – Peoria is often viewed as the average American city; after all, we are famous for it (Will it Play in Peoria?). We want to see if activism, culture, and involvement within our community and government will play in Peoria. We hope to help promote these things within Peoria and the surrounding cities. We want to encourage open discourse on solutions to society problems within our area, as well as discussion about changes, improvements, and reforms that will better our area by making us safer, more prosperous, and more free. We want our city to clearly show progress. Some may measure progress as less crime and a strong economy; these are indeed valid ways of measuring progress; beyond this, however, we want to make progress by showing Illinois, the Midwest, and our country that there are alternative ways of doing things. Perhaps we can come together and shape our city in such a way that everyone else looks at Peoria and sees something want to model.

• Transparency & Accountability – While our local government is generally pretty transparent, we want to encourage both transparency and accountability. Our city councils and mayors need to represent the will of the people; if they don’t, we have a duty to do something about it. Likewise, as citizens we have a duty to make sure those who govern us know what we want. Along with keeping the governance accountable, we support keeping those who force the law accountable. Police officers are there to enforce the law and to serve and protect. We must make sure this is always the case, and keeping law enforcement accountable is important to preserving our freedom and rights.

Within our Area:

• Community – Within the Peoria are, we want to support a sense of community. We may disagree on things, but we need to support our right to disagree and keep all discourse civil. By promoting Peoria as a community, we should all support fairness and courtesy. By using our site’s discussion forum we hope to promote the only aspect of community, which will hopefully overflow into person-to-person community interaction. By discussing what’s important to us we can get more involved in making our city a better place as well as meet like-minded people.

• Culture – While we have some aspects of “culture” within our area, Peoria remains largely a city without what many would deem as “culture.” As a growing city, we want to support the development of community involvement and events that develop a strong sense of culture and community. This broad term can cover anything from citizen journalism and activism to public meetings, events and initiatives.

• Involvement & Activism – Though they may help foster community and culture, we must note that we want to get people involved and active within the Peoria area. We want to make Peoria a less apathetic and more progress-driven city.

PeoriaUnited exists for several reasons. Firstly, we want to unite Peoria as a community. We want to provide a means for positive discourse on issues that matter not only to our world, but also specifically to our area, such as local politics, business, and culture. Our website provides a vehicle for Peoria-area residents to talk about what matters to them in the community and to help them meet like-minded people.

Secondly, we want to provide valuable, alternative news to the community by the community through citizen journalism. We are not a traditional news organization or agency. We do report the news, but in doing so we hope to talk alternative angles and consider aspects of a story than traditional newspapers and news stations might not have the time or desire to cover.

For example, we want to talk more in-depth with the people reported upon and get more of the story from their perspective. We will focus on firsthand accounts of the news whenever possible. Furthermore, on issues of government and politics, we want to provide an avenue for discourse and alternatives to be considered rather than only considering the past way doing things. We want to focus on new ideas and alternatives.

Most importantly, you report the news. PeoriaUnited, in addition to being a discussion community, is also a citizen journalism news group. We hope to help get people in the area involved in reporting the news. If you’re involved in something newsworthy, we want you to share your experience. If the main media outlets only cover part of a story or don’t cover it at all, we want you to share that with us. We want you to share your opinion on the news and local happenings as well. We are a large proponent of not only citizen journalism but also video citizen journalism. For more information on citizen journalism or becoming involved with us as a citizen journalism, read our page on citizen journalism here. Citizen journalism is the media of the future. We aim to establish a team of as many citizens as are willing to help report the news and keep local media, government, and business accountable.

We believe that the best news stories go in-depth and cover every aspect of the story from a transparent, honest, and unbiased point of view. Our site has several values that we follow within our organization and support within our local media, local government, and local community. To read more on our values, please read about them here.

Lastly, we have a vision of Peoria. We want our city to grow, improve, and to develop a strong sense of culture and community. Our objective is to provide a resource for the area and to help a developing city prosper. To read about our vision for our city, take a moment to read about it here.

What is citizen journalism?

Citizen Journalism, sometimes called guerrilla journalism or street journalism, is when the public plays an active role in recording, reporting and creating news and information. Citizen journalism can take many forms, including internet articles, video, print, radio and other forms of media.

Citizen journalism is by the people. It is when you report the news. It offers alternative perspective on the news and provides a more personal approach to reporting and sharing of ideas. Citizen journalists often have the ability to cover a story more in-depth than traditional news outlets, often resulting in news that is more detailed, more personal, more original and sometimes discovered and reported first.

What is citizen journalism at PeoriaUnited.com?

Our primary forms of citizen journalism on PeoriaUnited.com are web and video media. Peoria citizen journalists can get involved by posting columns and blogs on our site, both as regular citizen journalists or occasional citizen journalists. The level of your participation and amount you contribute is entirely up to you. Here, the most newsworthy articles will be featured on our homepage. Video citizen journalism is also highly valued within the PeoriaUnited community. We encourage aspiring citizen journalists to film public events, newsworthy happenings, and to seek interviews with those involved in news stories, local politicians and other community leaders. Video citizen journalists are encouraged to not only find and report news, but also to create news.

We believe that citizen journalism is the journalism of the future. As citizen journalism here at PeoriaUnited.com evolves, members will be able to report news, vote on news, and peer review articles for legitimacy.