Heard It Through the Newsvine

The lines between citizen and professional journalism are blurring, creating opportunities and risks for media outlets like MSNBC, which recently acquired user-generated news site Newsvine

by Catherine Holahan

The details of the murder, as reported nearly 20 years later on Newsvine, are more vivid and heart-wrenching than the brief account of the crime that originally appeared in The New York Times. While the Times succinctly relays the police version of events—a man killed his wife and children before committing suicide—the Newsvine piece paints an intimate portrait of a paranoid drug addict who once forced his wife to shave her head so other men wouldn't look at her.

The Newsvine reader should know, the writer says, that the killer was her brother-in-law, the victims her sister and nephews. But the reader also can't be certain that any of these gripping details are true. No one at the Seattle-based Newsvine, acquired Oct. 7 by MSNBCInteractive News, has verified her story.

The new details about the 1989 murder, posted in relation to the Oct. 7 killing of six people at a pizza party in Wisconsin, illustrates the benefits and challenges of trying to meld user-generated content —all the rage when it comes to blogs and YouTube videos—with traditional journalism.

Early on the Scene at Virginia Tech

At its best, user-generated content provides extra eyes and unique insights around news events that even media giants with large staffing and resources can't hope to supply for every story. In April, traditional media outlets were able to cover the Virginia Tech massacre more quickly thanks to early accounts from students who were on the scene long before the news crews arrived. "Citizen journalists, I see them as news gatherers," says Charlie Tillinghast, president of MSNBC Interactive News. "And given the state of the media industry, where so much of the news gathering has been shouldered by traditional media, and with cutbacks in that area, one thing to watch is whether the citizen journalists break more news."

At its worst, however, user-generated content can expose a news organization to libel suits and damage reputations. Yet that's a risk news organizations are increasingly opting to take as they lose readers and ad revenue to blogs, information aggregators such as Yahoo! (YHOO), and citizen journalist Web sites.

To be sure, traffic at most news-sharing sites generally pales in comparison to the audience of an established news outlet's site. MSNBC, a joint venture of Microsoft (MSFT) and NBC, grabs more than 30 million unique visitors a month, says Tillinghast. But Web sites like Newsvine and Digg, where users post links to articles they find interesting and chat about them, have drawn large audiences in a short amount of time. Since its official launch in March, 2006, Newsvine's audience has grown to more than 1 million unique visitors a month, according to the site. Digg reports 20 million users. Typically, users are intensely loyal to such sites, returning frequently and spending more than an hour per month on them.

Training Citizen Journalists

In response, traditional news providers are incorporating user-generated content as a way to engage the audience and get a jump on breaking news and below-the-radar stories they might otherwise miss. Nearly every major U.S. newspaper and TV station Web site now includes forums for user comments. Many more are gradually adding space for users to post (BusinessWeek, 3/06/07) videos, photographs, and short news items.

The hope is that enabling users to post their observations and comments will trigger discussion, drawing readers who want to opine on the news as well as absorb it.