• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, April 20, 2009

News Corp. brethren Fox News and MySpace on Monday co-launched a citizen journalism platform named uReport through which MySpace members can upload photos and videos to Fox News from a computer or mobile device.

With the service, MySpace members can share content with other members and become "uReporters" by uploading video and photos tagged by specific categories, including news, entertainment, and politics.

The initiative is designed to create a larger and more engaged audience for Fox and MySpace, according to Jeff Misenti, Fox News vice president of digital. "The MySpace uReport community presents an extraordinary opportunity to expand our network," he said.

Fox plans to feature select content in programming on Fox News Channel and FoxNews.com, while its editors have full control of the MySpace-uReport page.

UReport is competing directly against CNN's citizen journalism service iReport -- which debuted in 2006 -- and has since created a Facebook page where "iReporters" can similarly upload footage, photos and content. During its first 18 months, CNN's iReport generated nearly 100,000 videos, photos and text submissions to CNN.com.

For CNN at least, citizen journalism threatened to undercut the value of its brand. In 2008, a "citizen journalist" posted an erroneous story on CNN iReport claiming that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack. The post prompted a sell-off of Apple shares before Apple denied the report and the stock recovered.