What are other examples of crowdsourced journalism?

http://www.nowpublic.com/korean_citizen_journalism_site_faces_challenges

Ran into this site researching problem of authenticating citjour reporting. Looks like NowPublic has been sourcing citizen journalism for a couple of years. Reference to OhMyNews, Drudge and SFGate.com

Knight Citizen News Network is an interactive journalism project launched through the University of Maryland's College of Journalism. It opened it's portals online two weeks ago, on the beat with Assignment Zero. Likewise both pioneering and standard-bearing, KCNN explores the same territory with a more formal character and educational emphasis. It is designed to serve the multiple purposes of advancing education, research, development and participatory community service in a complimentary fashion. As an extension of The Institute for Interactive Journalism's J-Lab it is funded by the Knight Foundation and endeavors to both "help citizens use digital media in ways that enrich community, enhance public discourse and enliven democracy" and "open doors for traditional news organizations seeking to embrace user-generated content."

KCNN's website includes educational 'modules', research reports including a special 'citmedia' report focusing on "micro-local" news sites featuring content generated by local citizens, a directory of citizen media sites in the United States, a showcase of 'cool' examples of interactive news efforts, an assortment of other innovative highlights like NYC Bloggers's interactive map of 6,000 blogs in New York City organized by proximity to subway stations, and many other engaging features and useful resources including information about grants for fledgling citizen media sites.

KCNN synthesizes input from veterans of citizen media and traditional journalism. Interactivity between the citizen media and traditional news communities is a central theme, but the interactivity of KCNN's website itself and many examples of interactive news efforts it highlights is minimal. In the latter case many engaging localized efforts showcased admirably promote participatory democracy but are more akin to educational 'hands-on' museum exhibits than forums of exchange, with user input limited to navigation and choosing from proscribed multiple-choice answers at best. A number of these are relevant to specific crowdsourced journalism topics such as law enforcement, open government, legislation, legal motions, and economics. These may not feature real interactivity but are very useful tools that can be and in some cases come much closer to being integral aspects of sites fulfilling the broader meaning and purpose of truly, dynamically interactive forums of exchange. Two of those are Rochester's Democrat and Chronicle Fighting for Rochester's Future and San Francisco's KQED Devil's Advocate. It may be worth noting that these examples seem to have been created by news organizations not citizen groups. As these "hyper-local" sites develop, so may the formation of a more fully interactive macro network linking these localized civic participation-generating 'citmedia' sites not only within the United States, which KCNN limits itself to, but internationally.

Using the term "citizen media" or 'citmedia' KCNN refers to sites containing user-generated content that may not be traditional or "finished" journalism but which the large majority of 'citmedia' site participants KCNN surveyed consider to be "journalism". The 'Citmedia' report notes that half of those surveyed said their sites "don't need to make money to continue" and it seems most assess the success of their sites to be more contingent on constructive community impact than generation of revenue. Elements noted as indicators of success as judged by participants include watchdogging local government, providing pertinent news not to be found in existent traditional media, stimulating traditional media, contributing to the solution of problematic local issues, and increasing voter turnout. Of KCNN's instructional 'modules', Mapping Citizen Media Models is especially interesting, outlining and tackling the nitty gritty of economic considerations and variables with an eye toward sustainability.

New Voices (http://www.j-newvoices.org/) announced that it'll provide $12,000 grants to ten new citizen media initiatives that involve citizens in news reporting. See the press release at http://www.j-lab.org/nv2007_release.shtml.

Mumbai Help at http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com/ is a blog from Mumbai, India that provides information about how to deal with emergencies in the city. It kicked into full gear during the train bombings in July 2006 by providing the world with information about doctors, lists of causalities and fatalities, and contact information (http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_mumbaihelp_archive.html). People from all over the world and in Mumbai used the site to try to reestablish contact with loved ones and friends.

Beginning in April 2007, news aggregator Topix.com has begun enlisting the crowd to edit and report local news, supplementing its automated RoboBlogger technology for sorting news articles from over 50,000 sources.

With funders including Gannett Co., Inc., The McClatchy Company, and the Tribune Company and a management team including the co-founder of the Open Directory Project, this looks like a site to watch. Automated linkage to a large array of news articles, free classified advertisements, and simple tools for editors (citizen journalists, not professional journalists), together with easy means of engagement with site, make this a strong contender in an increasingly competitive landscape of citizen journalist opportunnities.

Home page is http://www.topix.com/

about Topix

The PRI radio show "Open Source" with Christopher Lyden is a crowdsourced radio show that was created before the term crowdsourced was around to describe it.