The process of delivering news has always been changing over hundreds of years. At first the only news service was restricted to royalty, and noble houses, with the very filtered news being carried by horseback, certainly dating from the times of Ancient Egypt. The first coded messages also date from those times -- with both sender and recipient wary of strategic information falling into wrong hands, especially those messages carried back from scouts during times of conflict.
The rôle of messenger was not an entirely safe occupation...as the hapless herald who brought Brian Blessed's King Richard IV information in the original Blackadder series discovered when met with the bellowed order, "I like not this news! Bring me some other news!"
The public -- those who had any interest in what was going on anywhere else in the world -- would later get their news from a returning soldier, or from a town crier, although the latter would be restricted to what the nobles wished the populations to hear. Traders would carry rumors from village to village and market to market, especially the fearful news of plague or a change of the kingdom's ruler.
The printing press changed how news was to be spread and how the church would operate. Tracts would hit the streets, or be nailed up in public places, to push agendas; demand justice; condemn the masters; seed dissidence. And, for the first time, those who could read were offered the Bible in English -- without the filtering of the priests who had lorded over their congregations because of their, generally meager, understanding of Latin.
Men like Thomas More were allowed to read religious tracts and other short publications that had been banned by the church ("put on the Index") so he could argue against them in pieces to rebut the "lies" that had been told.
Then came crude newspapers, often limited to distribution in a single town -- the first local newspapers, in effect. National news would still be conveyed by messenger and then, later, the stagecoach and Pony Express, and eventually by the telegraph, national newspapers and the telephone.
Sources of news have always been a few steps of separation from the public. The newspaper barons decided what would and would not be published; they also decided what slant would be put on the news. You could very well say that this still happens and the opinion that different newspapers will take -- The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, for example -- can be rather figured in advance. And, of course, the release of the airwaves from the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 created monsters like Fox News, where no secondary view opinion is allowed to be aired. Even if someone with an opposing opinion is allowed to appear he/she is shouted down or the microphone is cut off. An ignominious process.
In the trade press we would receive news releases by mail or FedEx, and then in our e-mail in-boxes. But the proliferation of information on the web means that any observer can now access corporate news -- and does. That is one of the reasons why EN-Genius Network does not think of itself as a news source; it would be archaic to produce a web publication that merely duplicates what is already out there. (Although we do draw attention every week to items that we think would be of special interest to readers.)
Things are changing again. The success of YouTube -- both in viewer numbers and financially -- has not gone unnoticed by some of the other players on the web.
Incidents like the three minute racial outburst of Michael Richards (comedian or lunatic?) would not have been news without the cellphone camera that caught it all. If any of the audience had called a news desk saying, "you should have heard what Richards said during a tirade at the Laugh Factory" it would have never made it to print: and if one of the sleazier publications followed through, Richards would probably have successfully sued them. No, that cellphone transformed it into news -- even with the horrible video and audio quality.
Yahoo and Reuters have begun to get particularly hot on the idea of collecting news from stringers who are no longer professionals; they want to spread the door open wide to content from anybody. Yahoo has started an area called You Witness News in a joint venture with Reuters. They will only allow posting of photos and video and will check photos carefully for tampering. (Reuters is particularly sensitive to that issue after bloggers and then fellow journalists exposed Photoshopping of an image in Beirut by a lowly paid stringer: Adnan Hajj.)
No money will be passing hands with these postings but Reuters has said that if materials begin to be used by their re-publishing network clients then a payment system will be developed.
CNN has gone a stage further by allowing the posting of text as well. How that text will be verified will be an interesting process to watch; the very nature of using stories submitted in this manner is because the network didn't have the resources to be present at the incident or event. The New York Times' problems with Jayson Blair, who faked stories and misstated facts, cost top management their jobs. It can very easily happen again with the even less attentive management at CNN.
If any individual sees a major news story develop right in front of them will they post it on one of these sites? I don't think so; I would personally seek the instant gratification and the subsequent fame that YouTube would offer.
