Given my comments yesterday about the motivations behind online video, it’s interesting to see a piece in Broadcasting & Cable about a similar move with citizen journalism video:
“Starting this week, television stations owned by Fisher Communications, Journal Broadcast Group and Granite Broadcasting will join the ranks of MSNBC, Reuters and The Weather Channel by inviting “citizen journalists” to produce anything from online news footage to complete reports. The coverage could find its way onto local news broadcasts as well.”
But here’s the interesting bit:
“This is a revenue-driving initiative,” says Timur Yarnall, president/CEO of Broadcast Interactive. “If the video is not suitable to have advertising or is copyrighted material, it is not going up.”
Better make sure those starving orphans are sponsored by Nike, then…
Online Journalism Blog 
Hi Paul…
you might be interested in this post on my blog that reveals what MSNBC will do with one’s citizen video content…and this post on a Santa Rosa, CA tv station where the newsroom staff was sacked and how the owners, Clear Channel (one of the biggest media monopolies here in the States) have decided to “harvest” citizen/user generated content.
IMO, the journalists and the people are going to be seriously hurt by big media’s need to feed their stockholders.
Cool! kabababrubarta