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CNN to Launch Completely User Generated News Site
Written by Josh Catone / February 11, 2008 11:43 AM

We've been writing a lot about the trend of media companies paying more attention to citizen journalism and amateur reporting tools. Perhaps no mainstream media outlet has done more to push citizen journalism into the spotlight over the past year than CNN. In August 2006, they launched the user generated content-focused i-Report feature on their web site, which has since attracted over 100,000 submissions from users, and last summer they held the first of two CNN-YouTube presidential debates, in which questions were submitted via YouTube. CNN is about to take their participation in amateur news reporting a big step forward with the planned launch of iReport.com, an entire portal dedicated to completely user generated news content.

Read the whole story.

I just want to follow up on something that Ehver Green said in the caucus results thread. He said:

This whole thread is amazing. Isn't this what it should be about? Thanks to everyone who has posted this evening - the turnout is telling. Obama looking good.

EDIT: Olyblog was my first news source for results tonight!

I want to emphatically say YES! This is EXACTLY what it should be about. The caucus results thread was a perfect example of CJ in action. And I think we can do lots, lots more. I would love to see this kind of collective reporting about every important event in our community. We all have the stuff to do it (e.g., digital cameras, computers, video cameras, flickr accounts, etc.). Don't be a passive news consumer any more. Go out and find the answers to your questions and then share them with others. Discuss what you find, and you'll know more than any network or newspaper can tell you. As a zen master might say: "Be the news."

From The American Prospect:

This has to change. There must be some method whereby we can become informed and inspired to action. Maybe the answer lies in retraining journalists to go one step beyond reporting. Get the story, and also seek information about how a reader might constructively respond to it. This, of course, would require increased support for the work of investigative journalists. It would also require strategic partnerships between the professional media and nonprofit worlds, links that already exist between journalism and international affairs schools like those at Columbia University.

Maybe the answer lies in citizen journalists -- folks who often abandon the old-school idea of objectivity and tackle local issues with a verve for making change, not just reporting on it. This trend is already on the rise, and while it makes traditional journalists wince, maybe it could actually serve to empower some of the country's currently disenchanted readers.