The State of Citizen Journalism: Part 1, Newsvine. In the young but growing world of user-generated news, sites like digg and slashdot dominate in the tech sphere.
In the political arena, it is mostly editorial-driven sites that do well - such as DrudgeReport, HuffingtonPost and RawStory. Those sites get a lot of attention, but there are also a lot of so-called "Citizen Journalism" sites out there trying very hard to break through to the mainstream. We're going to run a series here on Read/WriteWeb exploring some of those sites.
In this first post we'll provide a brief intro to Citizen Journalism (but with a product focus, not theory), and profile a leading practitioner: Newsvine. Citizen Journalism: What is it and who's doing it? Citizen Journalism (henceforth CJ) is a classic example of the read/write web in action. As yet there's been no successful Western equivalent to OhMyNews, although there have been a lot of attempts at it. Current mainstream news organizations are also experimenting with user-generated news. Newsvine Top Trends. Newsvine Acquired By MSNBC - Leading Citizen Journalism Site Snapped Up by MSM. Today Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson contacted Read/WriteWeb to announce that his citizen journalism startup Newsvine has been acquired by MSNBC, the Microsoft/NBC joint venture, for an undisclosed sum.
Davidson told us that "Newsvine will continue operating independently, just as it has been since launching in March of 2006. " He also indicated there would be little change in the features of the site -- which is great news, because in our review of Newsvine in July, we noted that Newsvine "is probably more advanced in its design than other CJ [Citizen Journalism] sites, often trying new things and design techniques. " Indeed I can't wait to see how MSNBC integrates some of the Newsvine features, which Davidson said will occur: "Over the next few years, Newsvine technology and content will make its way onto msnbc.com, and vice-versa where it makes sense. " Newsvine officially became part of MSNBC on Friday, October 5th, but Davidson said they'd "been talking since May. " Using Newsvine. 445 comments from 1 Nation including: Public Discussion445 377 comments from 1 Nation including: Public Discussion377 387 comments from 1 Nation including: Public Discussion387 243 comments from 1 Nation including: Public Discussion243 97 comments from 1 Nation including: Public Discussion97 110 comments from 1 Nation including: Public Discussion110 127 comments from 1 Nation including: Public Discussion127 When Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, he made a statement that caused people to wonder about its exact meaning and Obama’s intentions. 135 comments from 17 Nations including: In a powerful interview with TPNN’s the Voice of Reason, Tim Constantine, Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy spoke of the dispute with the federal government over the land on which his family’s cattle had grazed for 130 years. 121 comments from 10 Nations including: 63 comments from 1 Nation including: Public Discussion63 85 comments from 1 Nation including: Public Discussion85.
Code Of Honor. Newsvine. Newsvine says that most articles on sites like CNN, MSNBC and Yahoo News come from the Associated Press.
Instead of letting an editor choose which stories are newsworthy, Newsvine publishes the entire Associated Press wire the second it becomes available. Stories have “Digg-like” up arrows, which along with user input is what controls placement of stories on the Newsvine site. In addition, the bottom of every article has an area for reading and writing comments which builds on the community feel of the site. Newsvine doesn’t forget about all of the other “non Associated Press, ESPN and New Scientist” stories out there, but instead relies on users to point to, or “seed” the good stories they find around the web. Thousands of stories are seeded by users every day.
Newsvine also gives users personal columns to express themselves. In addition to revenue, the ability to customize the site is also given to users.