• by Tom Siebert , December 6, 2006

Citizen journalism got a major bump yesterday with the launch of "You Witness News," a joint venture of Reuters and Yahoo that allows amateur photojournalists an opportunity to submit their pictures and videos of newsworthy events.

The best pictures will then be displayed on Reuters and Yahoo's online news sites, accompanying written coverage of the events.

Citizen journalism has played an increasingly important part in driving the news cycle in the past two years. It first came to prominence with photos taken on cell phones during the 2005 London underground bombings. More recently, a video taken of Seinfeld's Michael Richards' racist rant at a comedy club proved his undoing.

"Content is king, and getting a unique image to the masses is the holy grail when nobody else has it," says Evan Nisselson, founder and CEO of Digital Railroad, a provider of Internet application services for the professional photography industry. Nisselson was one of the first people to recognize that cell-phone photography would change the news industry. "People would rather see a professional photograph than one from a cell phone, but if nobody else has anything," he says, "it's not going to matter."

The most difficult part of the process for the news sites, he believes, will be separating what is genuinely newsworthy from visual filler. At the same time, they must leverage information without compromising truth. Reuters has already found out, he says, alluding to the Israel-Lebanon battles this past summer, that there can be problems with the credibility of professional photographers.

Although "You Witness News" has started, come January, the photographers will be paid for their work if professional organizations pick up the pictures for distribution.