Personally I see both ups and downs to hiring internally.
On the up side, if you are to hire members within the community who contribute a crap load and are well respected you help secure your user base. A user isn't likely to go to another website if they have a staff member that they admire and respect. On VGChartz I think we have a few so called celebrities and these users contribute a crap load and are well respected. Example Spurgeonryan should most definitely be a staff member if the site hires internally, the guy has contributed more for the site then most staff have. Other users like Rol are also well respected and hiring them to work a position would be smart from a PR point of view.
On the down side of hiring internally, VGChartz is viewed as a professional gaming site, ideally it would benefit most from professional writers. I wouldn't even consider myself to be in this category, I do not have a University Journalism degree just journalism courses at Uni and high school. Fact is the site could use real bonafide journalists who act professional and are of I wouldn't say higher quality but trained in the journalism profession.
Their are ups and downs to both. A major negative for hiring professional journalists is they do often cost money and websites usually can't afford to hire these pro's on their budgets. But on the other hand if you hire individuals from within the community you sometimes get users who do not act like actual professionals.
That being said look at GameTrailers and 1Up and G4 they all have hired people that many journalists would deem unprofessional. So it really is dependent on the user base and readership of the site.
In the end I would probably say if your going to hire internally, hire those who contribute a lot to the site, those with a reputation and supporters within the site. Users who have been with the site a few years know who those contributors are without me needing to drag personal bias into the matter.
-JC7
"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer
