TAG | Watch out Rupert! - YouTube wants to be top news destination |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Monday, 26 May 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2 Of course that is not going to happen overnight and of course the 'traditional' media organisations will argue that citizen journalism is no substitute for professional journalism (but nevertheless they are all embarking on 'citizen journalism' initiatives that invite the general public to contribute photos and videos to their online sites.) Gartner analyst, Allen Weiner, was dismissive of the plan saying: "This effort appears to be a good-natured attempt at empowering citizens to tell stories, but in no way should it be labelled 'news' or anything even close." And he contrasted it to Vancouver based NowPublic , "a company that understands the power of citizen media and its relationship to the news," saying it had "built out a portal, platform and set of very handy tools, which has resulted in what most critics agree is the model for citizen media...NowPublic understands that credibility with consumers (and now with newspapers, which take his company very seriously) is what builds brand. NowPublic has tamed the citizen media mess by instituting a layer of checks and balances in the form of volunteer editors, experienced guides and a group of staff editors (including a former BBC News exec) who become final arbiters for content quality. YouTube's efforts only help to make NowPublic's case that citizen media is not easy and requires more than a name and fairly good intentions." CitizenNews may be little more than a name at present, but the move is significant because for the first time a part of the Google empire has moved to become a primary source of online news rather than simply an aggregator pointing news seekers to other sources. CONTINUED |
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