Schaffer describes in her article how placeblogging is significant to journalism. How I see it, what Schaffer is really encouraging journalists to do, is to crowdsource. Through crowdsourcing, many people at many different locations can work together toward a single goal: in this case, local journalism. Relatively new technology like wikis and rss feeds, as well as increasingly cheaper consumer video/digital photography equipment are making crowdsourcing simple for those in the know. The first example of crowdsourced journalism that came to my mind was the YouNewsTV program being executed by the Portland TV station, KATU. Through this site anyone can upload news content (e.g., photos, videos, text) which is then either approved or denied by a moderator. The site touts that if KATU likes or needs user content, it can appear on air in addition to being on the website. Being a big television viewer, I noticed when KATU first promoted this program. I must admit– I was skeptical about its success from the start. TV news viewers aren’t typically the same demographic as YouTube posters and bloggers. As far as I can tell, KATU didn’t much target Internet-savvy young people, but assumed general viewers of their news and surrounding programming would be interested in generating content. I could be wrong, but I don’t think they promoted YouNewsTV on anything like Facebook or MySpace. However, a glance at the site shows that content is coming in (even if it is mostly just pretty pictures of the recent cold weather). KATU doesn’t seem to be expanding its YouNewsTV marketing campaign, so maybe this is just the kind of content they’re looking for.
KATU and other television stations are beginning to utilize the concept, but for crowdsouring to significantly contribute to journalism, journalists need to work a little harder. Blogs need to be watched and aggregated on a station page. Mobile uploads need to be easier and encouraged. Twitter could even be integrated. Schaffer’s encouragement of placeblogs is a good start, but for true crowdsourcing to be utilized, traditional media need to expand and update their newsgathering nets to function in the Web 2.0 world.
