The newest hit of the internet in 2008: iReport.com. CNN has created a YouTube-like website for users to upload breaking news to the internet for others to watch and some clips make it onto CNN or CNN.com.
While CNN intends to start small and see the direction the site goes, there are quite a few ethics issues I see involved with this. The idea of iReporting was initiated in 2006 by CNN and there have been clips users have sent in that have been aired on TV. However these clips were checked for creditability before being shown nationally.
iReport.com's domain name was purchased for $750 thousand last month and was recently launched, allowing for any and all content to be uploaded as news. There will be no prior investigating of the content and that creates an issue of iReport.com users believing anything and people falling victim to false claims that may be out there.
This kind of defamation and misleading media is already an issue on YouTube, which does not cast itself as any sort of news website. What is going to happen down the road when people upload clips of false news and create a disturbance about something that has no factual backing.
iReport.com is a great idea in terms of getting the nation involved with the news but this will also create to many Bill O'Reilly wanna-bes and there is going to be an issue of ethics involved in the site if it makes it mainstream.
CNN launches iReport.com
I think that the iReport may be questionable. I could definately see it getting out of hand. If they continuously get clips of news are they going ot be able to check all of them for their validity? If they can not do that then whose to say that it is real news. I also agree that it will bring in a lot of Bill O' Reilly wanna-bes. Then again, it may make it and they may be able to control what gets put on to the site.
ReplyDeleteiReport should just be a branch of YouTube. I say this beacuse there is no prior check done. What is news to one person may not be news to another. This could possibly open the gates for false information to be released.
ReplyDeleteI think that the idea behind iReport is good, but whether it will work is another thing. When a viewer gets a chance to contribute to the news they feel more involved and connect. I don't understand why there seems such a negative reaction on this post to the idea. For this is the very reason news broadcasts are losing viewers to blogs and other online content. I guess we should try to view iReport as a forum based media and truly understand that it's not directly linked to "real news" ..... media convergence
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