“Citizen journalism”-have you heard that term before? If not, one of the best examples I can give you is NowPublic, a participatory news network based in Vancouver. NowPublic has thousands of reporters operating in 140 countries, ready to report on breaking news stories. For example, during Hurricane Katrina, NowPublic reports that they had more reporters in the affected area than “most news organizations have on their entire staff”.

The tagline for the site is “Crowd Powered Media”, which means anyone can contribute a story to the site. You create an account, submit your story, upload photos, video, or audio, using easy links on the site. If you use the photo sharing site Flickr, you might find one of your public photos in a story, which is how I found out about the site. A photo I took of Kaitlyn standing on our sidewalk with her wagon was grabbed for a story, and I got an email from the reporter asking me to approve or deny the use of the photo. All my Flickr photos are public so I approved it.

And now I’ve just had two more photos used in a story, photos I took just of a plate of tomato slices and a plate of lettuce leaves were grabbed to illustrate a story about how a new research study on how consuming fruits and vegetables may protect against lung cancer. By checking a box under the post, I made sure that my photos are credited to me and give a link to my Flickr page.

I’m just fascinated by this concept of participatory news, that I could be somewhere and see something news-worthy, take a photo or video of it, and have it appear on a news site. What do you think?