1. How to embrace User Generated Content without pissing off photo-journalists, a lesson from CNN’s iReport

    iReport, CNN’s citizen-journalist-social-network, was officially launched in August of 2006. The service allows anyone to upload report-worthy content to CNN’s website. Recently, the CNN Press Room announced an important milestone for the platform: there are now more than one million registered iReporters worldwide. And if that doesn’t make any of you small, independent local news reporters shake in your knee-high rain boots - get this. Last year, CNN held the first “iReport Awards.” Award categories included, among others: Breaking News, Personal Story, Compelling Imagery, Commentary, and interestingly, something called “Spirit Honorees.” Spirit Honorees (five were chosen) are iReporters “who have distinguished themselves for their positive attitude, [and] willingness to try new things [ireport.cnn.com].” Whats more, once a month CNN International airs a half-hour TV program hosted by Errol Barnett. The show highlights the most newsworthy iReport and citizen journalism reports on the Internet. 

    CRITICISM

    Most of iReport’s criticism falls into two camps that I’ll call the “no pay” camp and the “job cuts” camp. The “no pay” side states its unfair for corporate news networks to not pay iReporters who help make top headline news. Especially, when the content supplied by iReporters becomes instantly sharable anywhere on the web once its handed over to CNN. Think this argument sounds eerily like the recent lawsuit filed by upset blogger Jonathan Tasini regarding his unpaid blog contributions on Huffingtonpost.com? It is. And at the moment, Arianna doesn’t appear to be budging on her no-pay-rule for the site’s army of bloggers.

    On the other hand, the “job cuts” side says that quality, hardworking journalists are being displaced by iReporters. Jakob Schiller, over at Wired starkly describes a recent corporate squabble at CNN. “CNN recently laid off at least 50 staff, including several photojournalists, in favor of affiliate contributions and [you guessed it] iReport.” The news, if you’re a struggling photo-journalist, appears to be grim.

    THE GOOD SIDE 

    Despite all of the backlash coming in from angry commenters and confused photo-journalists now out of work, iReport does have one significant redeeming quality: iReports (user-generated content in general for that matter) helps focus attention and bring media coverage to outlying, seemingly non-newsworthy events that have traditionally been ignored by mainstream media outlets. Take, for instance, the media standoff between Occupy Wall Street protesters and the major news networks in 2011. Protesters, enraged by the movement’s limited media coverage, sent in thousands of photos and videos from Twitter and Facebook demanding to be heard. Like iReport, Olapic, a photo-crowdsourcing platform, allows any brand or publisher - that isn’t CNN - the ability to collect photos and videos from their users. Olapic was used heavily during the Occupy Wall Street movement here in NYC. See for yourself by checking out the Olapic-powered uPhoto section of the New York Daily News.

    The iReport team over at CNN recognized this themselves when, earlier this month, they began receiving a tremendous amount of content coming in from protests taking place in Nigeria. Just yesterday, Craig Silverman, a journalist at Poynter wrote, “The result was increased coverage on CNN properties featuring the material submitted by a range of Nigerian citizens and freelancers.” The Nigerians demanded that the world know what was happening in their streets and, through iReport contributions, their voices were heard.
     
    WHERE WE GO FROM HERE
     
    Naturally, after reading all of this, I was as curious as you probably are to see how all of this “iReporting” business works from the user-side.
     
    Ok, I’m on CNN’s iReport page. In the top right corner there’s an upload button that allows me to submit “My Story,” add my location, and attach any video, photos, or audio files.

     
     
    Back to the main iReport page. There are lots of large, high-quality photos with headline titles above each photo. The featured piece at the top reads, “‘At Last’ is our song: Thank you, Etta James.”
     
     
     
    Clicking on this last piece leads you to an article written by Rachel Rodriguez in the entertainment section of the site. Under the title, to the left of her name is written, “This story started on CNN iReport.”
     
     
     
    Interesting. The article is written by Rodriguez but grew from the germs of multiple coalesced iReports (all relating to the recent death of Etta James of course). This brings me back to something Silverman said earlier,

    It’s common for an iReport producer to ask questions about more than just the material that was submitted. In this sense, an iReporter is a hybrid reporter/source. The material they send is treated as reporting, but their personal experience and knowledge makes them an important source of additional information and context [Poynter].
     
    Whether or not major news media agencies will figure out ways to reward their contributors with real money - instead of virtual medals and badges - will be seen in the coming months/years. Nevertheless, I can’t help but ask myself: Is this the future of large-scale corporate journalism? If it is then it appears that the journalist of the future won’t be the idealized daring reporter hitting the streets armed with just a camera and a notepad.

    Instead, next year’s journalist is likely to be of the type we’re seeing more and more of everyday. That guy you see sitting alone, in front of his computer, on the x-teenth floor of some New York high rise, synthesizing a steady stream of user-submitted content coming in from all over the world.
     
    Power to the people.

    1 year ago  /  0 notes  /  Source: CNN