New York Times To Post User-Generated Videos

Posted on February 7, 2007

The Red Herring is reporting that the New York Times plans to start posting videos created and submitted by users in March.

The New York Times, the gray lady of establishment journalism, plans to begin posting user-generated video in March, an executive said Wednesday.
Speaking in a panel discussion at the SIIA Information Industry Summit in New York City, Times executive Nicholas Ascheim said that developing video content is costly.
"The most expensive thing is the journalists themselves. That's why user-generated content is interesting," said Mr. Ascheim, director of entertainment for video and audio at New York Times Digital.

Movements by the Times toward more citizen journalism and online content should no longer be any surprise considering that owner and publisher Arthur Sulzberger isn't even sure if the New York Times will still have a print edition five years from now.

The Red Herring article also says Yahoo also has plans for some kind of micropayment system for rewarding quality video reporting from users that will debut in March. Yahoo already launched a citizen reporting feature last year called You Witness News (see our coverage of this here).

CNN also has its I-Reports feature which was originally launched as CNN Exchange.