BlogWorks: Citizen journalists: Who needs money?

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October 27, 2005

Citizen journalists: Who needs money?

I found an interesting piece on DetroitNews.com. It invites readers to submit essays.

Share your First Person experience
Do you have an experience to share with our readers? Maybe a life-changing experience that made you look at things differently? Or a humorous experience that simply put a smile on your face? Or even an ordinary encounter that had an extraordinary impact on your life?
We’d like you to share your stories with our readers through a new feature, called First Person, that will begin later this month.
It’s an opportunity to help others through the telling of your story. Or simply to entertain them.
To submit a First Person essay, call National Editor Nan Seelman at 313-223-4614, or e-mail her at nseelman@detnews.com.

Back in the day, that used to be called freelancing, and writers were paid for it. Now the newspaper is targeting aspiring writers by asking for free "user created content." This First Person feature is aside from The Detroit News's seven "blog" sections. (The blogs don't have the usual blog mechanics: comments on each post, trackbacks, RSS.)

Providing free content, whether writing or photos, is an interesting conundrum for unpublished writers. I'm sure many people would love having their work published just for the sake of seeing it published and citing it in a resume.

Robert Scoble, the Microsoft blogger, points to a debate between SixApart's Anil Dash and Flickr's Caterina Fake. Dash suggests that Flickr users whose photos are ranked as interesting should receive some sort of compensation for being in the category and drawing viewers to the site. Fake says being interesting is payment enough.

Posted by at October 27, 2005 09:47 AM