AP jump head first into citizen Journalism

Libby attorney Ted Wells argued vigorously to Judge Walton to bring Tim Russert back on the witness stand; "Scooter" Libby is in right foreground.

The AP has made a deal with Mediabloggers.org to provide blog coverage, from inside the courthouse of the Scooter Libby Trial that looks like hour by hour commentary on the trial. The latest blog entitle the "Jury has a Question" talks about how the Jury is passing notes to the Judge but Court TV correspondent Savannah Guthie will not know what is on the note until tomorrow when the court meet. (Some news is better left till Tomorrow). The blogs are done by Talk Left, The Hindsight Factor and Dean's World.

Does the world really play by play of this trial by liberal bloggers and one reporter from Court TV with way too much time on her hands? The AP thinks so.

Is this just another example of why we should have cameras in the courtroom? I think so. Better to film the actual events then blog about them from inside the media room of the courtroom. Let us inside to see the actual trial. Keep the part where the jury decide on a verdict in private.

NowPublic; let the age of citizen journalism began;

NowPublic Member

roland nowpublic looking for the "story behind the story"

AP also has a wider deal with the citizen Journalist site NowPublic.com
NowPublic.com has registered base of 60,000 contributors who can upload text, photos, audio, and video to the site. Thousands of people upload material to the site on a daily or weekly basis.

The way it works is if a breaking news story occurs on NowPublic the AP Will be alerted and the wire service can then purchase the content by paying the content creator and a cut will go to NowPublic creating a network of Freelance Citizen Journalists.

NowPublic has news posts from citizen journalists who just write their comments above a few paragraphs from an article by a real journalist working at a organization like National Geographic. Other posts have comments along with pictures that the citizen journalists took of a Landslide in San Francisco for example. In a way this works like blog posts.