NowPublic and AP form partnership
Some pretty big developments at Vancouver-based NowPublic, the “citizen journalism” or “participatory media” site, or whatever your preferred term is. One of them is that PaidContent says the company, whose site just underwent a redesign and relaunch, has signed a partnership arrangement with the Associated Press newswire. The two are going to collaborate on news coverage, although there aren’t really a whole lot of details — either in the PaidContent item or in the news release from the wire service.
AP vice-president Jim Kennedy says AP “has a long tradition of pursuing citizen contributions in breaking news events worldwide” and “this relationship will make that connection even stronger and result in more news and images from people who are in the right place at the right time.” Interestingly enough, NowPublic’s “Actual News Guy” Mark Schneider says in a comment on the PaidContent story that the company is looking for a correspondent in Second Life.
The other development came yesterday, and it is that MSNBC founder and former editor-in-chief Merrill Brown has joined NowPublic as chairman of the board. The release says that he “was on the front lines at MSNBC when the Internet transitioned into the number one place to consume news and content,” and that he will “help us to continue building the next-generation wire service.”
Big moves for NowPublic — it will be interesting to see how it develops.
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(On Feb 9th, 2007 at 2:03 pm)
I think about the line “AP has a long tradition of pursuing citizen contributions in breaking news events worldwide”.
It makes me think wether citizen journalism is actually something new. At most radio stations you get the latest news about accidents, traffic jams, etc, from drivers that call from cell phones or radio. Isn’t this citizen journalism?
(On Feb 9th, 2007 at 2:21 pm)
How long will it be before part of a wire editor’s job description includes “editing and filtering breaking news reports from citizen journalists”?
Not long now…
(On Feb 9th, 2007 at 4:21 pm)
That’s a good point, Luis — in a lot of ways, the Internet is just making it easier for people to contribute those kinds of stories. And Ryan, I would think that time is almost upon us.