You Witness News

Have Camera Phone? Yahoo and Reuters Want You to Work for Their News Service
Saul Hansell
New York Times
December 4 2006

This news article describes a global trend in so-called "citizen journalism". As part of a new web service launched on December 5 2006, Reuters and Yahoo invited members of the public to upload their own photographs and video of news events to "You Witness News". The idea is that people with digital cameras and camera phones who happen to witness and capture newsworthy events have images to share that reporters may not have been present in order to record. Furthermore, as Mitch Gelman, the executive producer of CNN.com, is quoted here as stating, "Even the best reporters in most cases are approaching the story from the outside in. What a participant observer can offer is the perspective on that story from the inside out."

Here is how the system works: users log onto the service - click here to access it - and upload photos and videos, all of which will subsequently appear on Flickr or a similar site. Editors at both Reuters and Yahoo review the submissions (weeding out fraudulent or retouched images) and select some to place on pages with relevant news articles, just as professional photographs and video clips are woven into their news sites. Although users will not be paid for images displayed on the You Witness site, people whose photos or videos are selected for distribution to Reuters clients will receive a payment.

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