Public Eye
November 14, 2005 12:01 PM

Anything Editors Can Do, You Can Do Better

The citizen journalist revolution is in full swing these days. And as the news industry continues to adjust itself to an audience that increasingly prefers to get its news from the Web – the Web itself continues to accomodate an audience that wants more control over how news content is presented.

Enter Newsvine. The Seattle Post Intelligencer recently offered a preview of the soon-to-be-launched news site that “gives you almost all the same stories you read on sites like MSNBC and CNN but presents them in a much more attractive package,” says Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson on his blog. Along with news stories from various outlets such as the Associated Press, that package will also include a substantial amount of contribution from viewers, who can submit their own stories as well as rank the site's news stories, creating a “reader-generated editing system that boosts the most popular articles to front page prominence,” according to the Intelligencer. The site appears to expand on the same idea offered by sites such as Google News, where story selection is based on an algorithm and therefore remains untouched by editors' hands. But instead of an algorithm, "Newsvine uses the 'group intelligence' of readers," says the Intelligencer. Another Newsvine novelty, notes Davidson: "Getting your own column on Newsvine isn’t only free but you’ll also keep advertising earnings associated with traffic to your pages."

The site launches in the next two months ... we'll be keeping our Eye on it.
Tags:
newsvine ,
seattle post intelligencer
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by wintermute1-2009 November 14, 2005 2:59 PM PST
This will be interesting: a different, interactively populist business model than Pajamas Media, which now is appearing elitist to me by comparison.
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by janefinch November 14, 2005 10:12 PM PST
I'll be watching this with interest. Personally, when I want news, I want "news", not blogs or so-called citizen journalism. Comment to wintermute1: pajamasmedia is a badly-planned, egotistical joke. Between thinking that the likes of Charles Johnson will attract mainstream dollars, and that having Judith Miller at the big launch are good ideas, these guys obviously shouldn't give up their (in many cases) tenured jobs just yet.
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by tomb82279 November 14, 2005 10:33 PM PST
Try Digg.com and it does something pretty similar.
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by ronmwanga November 15, 2005 11:20 AM PST
Citizen journalism is the biggest trend in journalism in the last 20 years. The trick now is to hold them to the same high standards as newsprint as the medium evolves, while allowing the voice to come through. The thing that I love most about citizen journalism is that it is a meritocracy. The best voices win out with the most obsessive readership as opposed to the traditional Eastern seaboard elitism of he who kisses the best derriere gets promoted.
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by wintermute1-2009 November 15, 2005 12:11 PM PST
Jane, thanks for your comment. This article just appeared in the online National Review re Pajamas: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/leigh200511150825.asp Sitting here in my pin-stripe suit....
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