One of the main debates within journalism research the last decade has been the role of citizens as contributors or, conversely, threats to journalism practice. While participation has been explored from many different theoretical, empirical and methodological perspectives, one is eye-catching by its almost complete absence – the perspectives from the citizens themselves. The study situated in a Swedish context, draws from focus groups (N=82) and a representative survey (N=2091). The results show that citizens, firstly, do not bring forth participation as an important element of journalism and, secondly, expects journalists to moderate such contributions according to established journalistic standards. Consequently, the results suggest that the focus from previous research on various forms of participation in journalism is somewhat misguided as it has little appeal to citizens.