I’m always saying that mainstream media needs to start seeking out and embracing audience content wherever it might exist, even if that means just linking to it rather than supplying the platform and making claims of ownership over the content.
Examples of this approach are fairly thin on the ground:
- A number of American newspaper sites, including the Washington Post, are experimenting with displaying blogger content via blogburst.
- The Observer Magazine (a print publication that comes with the Observer newspaper on Sunday) uses content from PostSecret.
- And of course there are lots of msm print publications and websites that quote from blogs, chat rooms, message boards, etc from time to time – I like the Ben Rooney column in the Guardian which does a nice job of using blogger content about whatever is the big story of the day
It seems that the BBC is (finally!) dipping it’s toe in the water. The recently launched World Have Your Say Blog, which I belatedly took my first look at today, is taking a flickr feed and displaying it alongside BBC content. They’ve even signed up for technorati!
The BBC’s Kevin Anderson, who blogs on the World Have Your Say blog, explained to me that:
"For us to blog doesn’t mean just pushing more BBC content out at our audiences, it’s part of what we call the global conversation. And the blog gives us as much of an opportunity to listen as well as to publish. Using Flickr is our recognition that there are a lot of communities and conversations already going on outside of the BBC. We’re trying to being a good neighbour online and be a part of those communities."