Posts tagged iReport
CNN Announces iReport Awards for Participatory Journalism
Feb 15th
If you’re a TV actor, you have the Emmy Awards. If you’re a journalist, you have the Pulitzer Prize. But if you’re a citizen reporter, what do you have? Nothing, until now.
CNN announced today that it was launching the CNN iReport Awards “to honor the best examples of participatory journalism in 2010.”
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CNN first launched the user-generated iReport feature nearly five years ago and last year alone users contributed more than 150,000 “iReports”. The project surpassed more than 740,000 “iReporters” in 2010. How does it work? Users submit reports to CNN directly on the Web or from the iPhone app, which are posted to the iReport section of CNN.com.
“The collaborative relationship that we have with our iReporters is one of the unique strengths of CNN, and in many ways represents the future of storytelling,” said Meredith Artley, managing editor and vice president of CNN.com, in a press release. “These awards are designed to celebrate those outstanding efforts.”
According to the release, awards will be broken up into six categories: Breaking News, Original Reporting, Compelling Imagery (photos or video), Commentary, Personal Story, and Interview. In each category, five users have been nominated and will be judged by a panel of “innovators and trailblazers in participatory storytelling.”
Nominees run the gamut, from iReporter Johnny Colt, who “took a boat out to the coast of Grand Island in Louisiana to expose BP for its slow effort in cleaning up the oil spill”, to Sam Bolton, who “investigated the lack of progress made to clean up unexploded bomblets from the Vietnam War.” While all of these iReporters may have varying levels of training and experience, they have something in common – the desire to relate their experiences and stories to the world, and CNN offers that platform. Of course, anyone could simply upload videos or relate these accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Blogger or any other “Web 2.0″ medium, but CNN might lend a bit of credibility. When CNN independently confirms details on a report, it stamps it with a “vetted” badge.
Awards will close on March 7, but until then you can see all 30 nominees on the iReport Awards site.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Global Domination: CNN iReport Has Now Published From Every Country on Earth
Dec 8th
It’s no Pambazuka News, but CNN’s four-year-old citizen journalism site iReport, does have a fairly high profile. Attached as it is to the pioneer in 24 hour cable news channels with a global reach, it shouldn’t surprise that it also has a global reach.
As of two days ago, iReports had been filed from every single country in the world except one. Nauru. Neither Nauruan nor visitor had ever sent in a story or photo or video from that South Pacific nation.
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On a blog post, the iReport team pleads with the inhabitants of the island to help them complete their “Global Challenge.”
“Only Nauru is left! We want to hear from citizens of, or visitors to, this tiny island in the South Pacific, halfway between Australia and Hawaii. Send us a snapshot of life in Nauru — the local culture, food, architecture, natural sites, or an unusual event happening there.”
Today, Nauru came through. San Franciscan Lee Miller dropped some shots he had taken during a 2008 trip the country.
The value of leveraging readers as reporters is their distribution on-site all around the world. How many people would have known about Nauru without both the curiosity of Miller and the muscle of CNN?
“‘It’s a really sad story because it wasn’t that long ago that Nauruans were driving around in Ferraris. … It used to be one of the richest countries in the world,’ Miller said.
But there was a lot more about the country waiting to be seen. Miller recalled “breathtaking scenery” and touching moments with locals. The owner of the island’s only hotel noticed him wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt and insisted on paying for the rest of his stay. Another time, when he got sick, a Nauruan bus driver who worked at the hotel took him to a store and bought him medicine.”
Citizen journalism grew in tandem with the growth of blogging and other social media tools. There has been a lot of shaking-out in the past few years as it’s veered from a curiosity to the salvation of journalism to a point of fact. To be able to say, “Tell me what you see!” and get an answer is the real fruit of citizen journalism.
From iReports to companies like Demotix, Now Public and AllVoices to blogs and Facebook pages, it looks like that dynamic has found roots in our experience of news.
In counting the world’s countries, CNN has used the U.S. State Department’s list of independent countries. This list has 194 countries, of which iReports have been filed from 193.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
iReport boot camp: Get your stories seen – CNN
Sep 10th
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iReport boot camp: Get your stories seen
CNN That's why this week's CNN iReport boot camp challenge looks at search engine optimization, or SEO. CNN.com SEO Manager Topher Kohan has some tips to make … How The “Focus On First” Helps Hide Google's Relevancy Problems |
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