What does mainstream media do when it discovers user generated content? Try to build their own platform, assert ownership over content and sell it then sell the concept to other newspapers – of course.
yourhub.com, the brainchild of the Denver Newspaper Agency, owner of the Rocky Mountain News, The Denver Post and other papers, collects "stories, photos and news from the Web" and then publishes that content as a weekly supplement. The FAQ page of the website explains that:
"Journalists from each Hub review all of the entries every week and select the most interesting and topical entries. If you are interested in being in the YourHub.com section, it’s best to include high resolution photos with your entries and be very descriptive in describing your stories and photos."
Let’s just hope that the journalist responsible for the FAQ page isn’t involved in subbing user contributions.
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While I agree with the general tone of this post, it is somewhat defensible for newspapers to try and monetize “user-generated content”, or what I call Citizen Journalism. After all, their collective readership is taking a beating. I guess my sense is they deserve an A- for effort. We’ll see where their ulitmate intention lies: with expansion of its audiences, or with the more likely bottom line, which is, er, the bottom line. More here: http://www.nextnews.org
I’ve just come across an excellent investigative report of YourHub.com by Tom Grubisich Online Journalism Review site.
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/060312grubisich/