Mar 27th, 2007 | Citizen Media, Media 2.0 | 2 Comments
The Knight Foundation has launched a website aimed at helping “citizen journalism” or community media operations find resources and best practices. Called the Knight Citizen News Network, it’s managed by J-Lab — the Institute for Interactive Journalism — with content created in part by Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media and by Amy Gahran of I, Reporter (as well as Right Conversations and the Poynter Institute’s E-Media Tidbits).
There’s a press release with more info here. The resources at KCNN.org include:
And (gratuitous Canadian reference) the site was designed by Hop Studios out of Vancouver.
Dec 4th, 2006 | Citizen Media, Social Media | No Comments
There have been several forays into “citizen journalism” — or “networked journalism” as Jeff Jarvis likes to call it — with the BBC being one of the major media outlets to have invited users to submit photos and stories. ABC News is also working with Vancouver-based social-media site NowPublic, as described here.
Now, Yahoo and Reuters are getting into the game, according to the New York Times (reg. required). Starting today, photos and videos submitted by the general public — through a website called You Witness News — will be included in the news feeds that appear on Yahoo News and the Reuters website, and next year those submissions (which are vetted by editors) will start being distributed to mainstream media outlets as well.
The issue of payment continues to be one of the major sticking points in these efforts, which Seth Finkelstein likes to call “digital sharecropping.” The BBC has said that it will pay those who submit photos or videos, but only if they are significant in some way — and what would qualify as significant remains to be defined (would video of Michael Richards having a racist meltdown qualify?). Reuters plans to pay if photos are distributed to media outlets, but not if they just appear on Yahoo:
Users will not be paid for images displayed on the Yahoo and Reuters sites. But people whose photos or videos are selected for distribution to Reuters clients will receive a payment. Mr. Ahearn said the company had not yet figured out how to structure those payments.
Should “citizen journalists” be paid for photos when they are used, even on the Web? Freelancers get paid, even if they aren’t stringers. And if they are paid, how much should they be paid? Should they be able to retain the copyright and sell it elsewhere, or should they have to surrender their rights in order to be compensated?
These are some of the issues big media and new media have to confront. More on this from Cynthia Brumfield at IPDemocracy, Staci at PaidContent and Om Malik at Gigaom — three excellent examples of new media in the flesh. At ZDNet, Steve O’Hear (who produced and appeared in the documentary In Search of the Valley) also has some thoughts.
Nov 25th, 2006 | Citizen Media, Social Media | 2 Comments
Lots happening with social media — or citizen journalism or open-source media, or whatever you want to call it. The BBC has a couple of ventures under way to take advantage of content produced by viewers, or “the people formerly known as the audience” as Dan Gillmor calls them. One of the latest was recently launched by BBC News 24, which is experimenting with a program called Your News.
According to the Media Guardian, the program will feature the best of the videos, photos and stories sent in by viewers to the BBC every day, and also some of the best user-generated content from around the Internet. The story says that the BBC gets around 10,000 emails a day with story suggestions, comments and pictures.
The Beeb’s Newsnight program is also experimenting with user-submitted videos, in something it’s calling Oh My Newsnight (a tribute to the Korean citizen journalism site Oh My News). A hat tip goes to Cybersoc for making note of that one. Viewers are asked to upload short video clips to YouTube or Google Video and then send the link to the BBC. One wonders why they wouldn’t just get people to tag their videos at del.icio.us so the BBC could find them automatically, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Meanwhile, ABC News has teamed up with Vancouver-based social media site NowPublic to gather opinion on what the U.S. should do about Iraq (thanks to BBC Radio’s Pods and Blogs for that one). NowPublic says that in addition to showing up on the site, “there’s a chance your video may appear on ABC’s Be Seen, Be Heard online news segment, as well as on flagship network news shows like Good Morning America and World News Tonight.”
Nov 17th, 2006 | Citizen Media, Social Media | 6 Comments
MediaGuardian, the media-focused portion of the Guardian newspaper, has a story (sorry, registration required) that says the BBC will pay you if you submit a particularly good photo or video from your camera phone or video-cam. The story notes that the official guidelines, which are here, say specifically that “We only pay in exceptional circumstances for such footage,” and that
Audiences should not be encouraged to think that payment is the norm, or in any way encouraged to take risks, put themselves in danger or break any laws in order to secure what they perceive to be material of high monetary value
The MediaGuardian story points out that just three weeks ago at a conference in Istanbul, the head of BBC’s interactive arm said that the Beeb wouldn’t pay for user-generated content. “Not on the budget I’ve got,” he said. “We don’t expect to pay for it and I don’t recall anyone asking for that. They retain the copyright and if they want to try and sell it elsewhere, they can.” Steve Rubel of Micropersuasion has some thoughts.
Oct 21st, 2006 | Citizen Media | No Comments
Shane Richmond, the editor of the Telegraph’s website, described recently on his blog how a fellow journalist — a longtime sports reporter — decided to quit his job and become a freelance writer/editor/photographer and run his own local media site. Rick Waghorn read about Craig Newmark of Craigslist and decided to take a buyout from his paper and become a Web journalist.
The site now picks up around 260,000 page impressions a week and Rick is optimistic about further growth. The business model is impressively diverse too; a subscription service, a mobile service, a betting portal, and advertising income.
As Shane points out, not every reporter would be able to do what Rick Waghorn did. In order to do so, a journalist would have to have a well-developed following already, or face a long struggle to build an online audience. “It’s not all that different from being a professional blogger,” says Richmond. “It’s just that Rick has the accreditation, the experience and the contacts to give himself an advantage.” Jeff Jarvis has some thoughts here.
