Russian news agency Ria Novosti launches citizen journalist site

Russian News Agency Ria Novosti has expanded its user-generated content (UGC) efforts with the launch of a new project calling for eye witness reports from news readers.

The You're a Reporter site will collect and publish pictures and videos from people "who have witnessed a remarkable event", a press release from the agency explains. Contributions will be selected and verified by the agency before publication and will run alongside reports from correspondents.

The launch follows the introduction of a UGC desk at the agency six months ago to monitor social networks and blogs for news leads and relevant content. The new section was also charged with designing new ways of delivering news online to attract new readers. The agency's flagship site www.rian.ru has featured more than 100 pieces of user-generated content in 2010 so far, according to a Twitter update from deputy editor in chief, Valery Levchenko.

"Handling user-generated content has become part of routine media business. The ability to work with citizen journalists, encourage, train and offer them a platform for broadcasting, gives a fantastic advantage to specific media outlets," says Natalya Loseva, RIA Novosti internet projects director.

Material can be sent via SMS, email or an upload service on the site. To encourage contributions, seminars and training programmes will also be held and prizes award for the best submissions.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk in December, Levchenko said the agency's commitment to multimedia and infographics would help set it apart in a competitive news landscape in Russia.

"We see infographics as a standalone rather than embedded somewhere or always wrapped in text. As a story develops you develop the infographic too and in the end it develops on its own," he said.

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