Are citizen journalists jealous of mainstream media?

Are citizen journalists jealous of mainstream media and do they resent writers who get paid for their work? I read an article called “Citizen journalists? They are just internet whingers” by Fionola Meredith, a writer for the Belfast Telegraph. Meredith, a member of what would be consider the mainstream media, denounces citizen journalists for constantly attacking professional journalists in their comments online. Meredith highlights the cases of Johann Hari, a columnist for The Independent, and Dr. Steven King, who wrote columns for the Irish Examiner. These two professional journalists were legitimately wrong in that they committed plagiarism, but Meredith primarily uses their stories to highlight the fact the citizen journalists love to attack professional journalists on the internet.
Meredith says, “[Citizen journalists] love the Hari and King stories, because they seem to confirm all their wildest suspicions; that paid journalists are too fat, lazy and indulged to do any real work.” She points out her personal experience with criticism from citizen journalists as well as some of the insults they like to use.
Interestingly, Meredith says that the commenters are typically “anonymous” and will make comments as generic as “Zzzzzzz” to indicate boredom. Now, if this is true, then how does Meredith know that the people commenting are actually citizen journalists? They could just be random people with no interest of creating journalist material themselves.
Meredith’s article brings up an important issue: the conflict between citizen journalists and the mainstream media. Although the mainstream media has somewhat bent to citizen journalism by often asking people to e-mail what they think, or pulling citizen journalists’ material from websites such as twitter or YouTube, mainstream media and citizen journalism can be thought of as being in competition. They are competing for much of the same audience.
Meredith claims that “[citizen journalists are] largely motivated by envy that they aren't receiving any cash for their far superior efforts and insight.” I find that an interesting assertion considering the most citizen journalists have other jobs and should be creating material with the knowledge that they will receive no money.
On the other side, are the mainstream media threatened by citizen journalists? Are they afraid that citizen journalists will make the role of the mainstream media less important? I don’t think that the mainstream media will go away since as Meredith says, “The mainstream media may have its faults, but it does at least offer some fundamental standards of accountability, quality and editorial control.” However, citizen journalism has somewhat dulled the role of the mainstream media. Perhaps Meredith herself was partially motivated by this fear. Sure her primary motivation was the attack by citizen journalists as she says, but if it’s not too far of a stretch to assume citizen journalists are envious then maybe it’s not too far of a stretch to assume Meredith feels her profession is threatened.