SAN FRANCISCO: As picture-taking mobile telephones and digital movie cameras grow ubiquitous, Internet users worldwide are being recruited as citizen news reporters.

In December, Yahoo launched YouWitnessNews, a website that posts offerings from users after the submissions pass muster with professional editors.

Founded almost two years ago, news website NowPublic.com taps into legions of people that post pictures, videos, or commentary online.

NowPublic boasts more than 60,000 contributing “reporters” in more than 140 countries and promises to quickly locate potential witnesses or news gatherers close to breaking events from natural disasters to terrorist attacks.

“We have become the largest participatory news network in the world,” NowPublic chief executive Leonard Brody said. “We have everything from complete amateurs to complete professionals.” “News in the future is going to be crowd-source and we are building that army.” NowPublic and YouWitnessNews have formed alliances with traditional international news wire services and provide them photos or other worthy content.

NowPublic takes the deal a step further, promising to swiftly pinpoint for wire service reporters potential witnesses or contributors close to the scenes of breaking news.

“If a bomb went off in Budapest and you wanted to connect with someone within a mile of the scene, we find them for you,” Brody said.

Vancouver-based NowPublic has been doubling in size every three months.

“I think that the whole citizen journalism phenomenon is a nascent trend,” Scott Moore, head of Yahoo News, said. “It is really technology that has created the opportunity.” “You have tens of millions of people around the world with cell phones with cameras connected to providers. It’s like having an army of stringers out.” Inspiration for YouWitnessNews came as Yahoo News editors were searching for pictures in the wake of deadly bomb blasts on London trains in July of 2005, according to Moore.

Within 30 minutes of the tragic explosions Yahoo editors found amateur images from the scene posted on websites such as Flickr. Within days of the bombings, there were thousands of images on the Internet.

“That brought home to us the potential,” Moore said.

Participatory journalism is expected to influence traditional news operations as reporters get tips or ideas from people online or respond to news broken by people in the right places at the right times.

NowPublic does not pay people for news stories, images or video. The organisation makes money predominately through syndication of content and fees charged to connect established news organisations with citizen reporters.—AFP