Should CNN Pay it’s iReporters?

The major news suppliers have been making a lot of noise lately about how “people” should pay more for the news that they are supplying.  They argue that news is expense to report and if the “people” don’t pay for it than the “people” will simply now longer have any news.

That’s absurd, of course, but that hasn’t stopped the AP from threatening bloggers kind enough to link to their content or stopped a possibly illegal meeting of newspaper execs colluding over erecting paywalls.

Now comes the official uprising of the citizen journalist in Iran and one really has to begin to wonder just how much longer the traditional news model can last.  According to Beet.TV:

CNN’s iReport has been getting many uploads about the Iran crisis, about 4600 over the past week, including 1600 last weekend alone. While these user-generated videos go up on the site without filtering, CNN producers vet these videos for use on the air and on CNN.com

The network has pulled 150 user generated clips from iReport, we have been told by a CNN spokesperson.    LINK

That’s right, CNN is using over 150 clips of reporting they did not create OR pay anything to broadcast.  Yes, people voluntarily sent in their clips and I am sure they clicked on a box giving CNN the rights to do anything they wanted with that footage without providing any compensation but one has to wonder how much longer that concept will work.

There seems to be a great opportunity for a savvy team to start a competing citizen news web site that pays its “iReporters” for exclusive rights to their content.  CNN might currently have a bigger audience but we all know the potential audience online is impossible to rival.

If anyone is interested in joining forces to start just such a competing site, drop me a line.  Together we can take down CNN/FOX/MSNBC!

1 Comment

• 

  By Pay for videos, September 20, 2009 @ 11:40 am

  Read your article about paying for videos
  Im trying to do just what u said Im trying to launch a global internet press/public relations network with any money split 50/50 CNN isnt the only game in town
  and i dont normally watch it im going to try and get people to send videos to me and i will deal with the big boys for best money

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