If you want to get a read on how loyal users are to a particular citizen-based web site, look no further than the comment section of FresnoFamous.com, when it reported on its own sale to newspaper conglomerate The McClatchy Company.

If you missed it, one of the telling stories about the weight of citizen journalism came in mid-December when McClatchy, the second-largest newspaper company in America, struck a deal to buy FresnoFamous.com and ModestoFamous.com. The fetching price should get revealed in McClatchy’s next quarterly report.

What’s noteworthy about the announced sale is that Jarah Euston, who launched Fresno Famous in 2004, wrote the story, herself, about the sale to McClatchy when it was announced on Fresno Famous. Just picture it. She starts an alternative site to McClatchy’s own mainstream newspaper, the Fresno Bee, turns it into THE site for Fresno residents to hook into community news, then gets purchased by the giant McClatchy and writes her own story announcing the sale. In the world of growing citizen web sites, it doesn’t get much better than that.

For her part, Jarah will remain with the site for an interim period before setting sails elsewhere.

“I will remain as a daily blogger on Fresno Famous and consultant to McClatchy for six months after the sale, advising them on an as-needed basis how to make the most of their new asset,” she told Fish BowlLA. “I am not a McClatchy employee. Fresno Famous will be part of custom publications at the Bee, separate from the newsroom.”

McClatchy, for its part, made little noise about the purchase. But it made a lot of noise days later when it announced publicly that it was selling one of its largest metro newspapers, the Minneapolis Star Tribune. That move sent shockwaves through the daily newspaper world. How delicious is it for boosters of citizen-based web sites to see a giant like McClatchy acquire a site like Fresno Famous and in the same breath shed itself of the 12th largest newspaper in the country?

Perhaps McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt’s statement on the sale of the Star Tribune says it all: “McClatchy is actively engaged in creating its future, building a company that meets the needs of its customers and rewards its shareholders. Business-as-usual offers no solution in a rapidly changing environment; clear vision, sound judgment and timely execution do.”

Clearly, with the purchase of Fresno Famous, McClatchy sees in its future a push toward citizen-based journalism and Web sites which capture that flavor.

The larger question McClatchy’s purchase begs is whether this is a trend we’ll continue to see. Will the McClatchys and Gannetts, of the newspaper world strategically begin to snap up citizen-based sites that they find competitive to their own brands or sites they think will complement their own push into the world of citizen journalism?

The other, more pertinent question for users of Famous Fresno, is whether McClatchy will allow it to remain true to its roots? What’s McClatchy’s long-term vision for this site? That’s where the audience of Fresno Famous, if you dig into the dozens of comments, is having its discussion.

Chris Lopez has been working in newsrooms since the age of 17, and over the past 28 years has covered a variety of beats from the National Football League to Denver City Hall. Most recently he worked at the Contra Costa Times.