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Trinity Mirror claims early success from crowdsourcing experiment as it breaks first story

Posted: 01/11/07 By: Oliver Luft

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Trinity Mirror has claimed its experiment with crowdsourcing is producing quick rewards after the newspaper group broke its first story less than two weeks after launching the project.

Journalism.co.uk, last month, revealed the launch of the Liverpool Daily Post's 'Make The News' project.

The regional newspaper publisher was at the time keeping the nature of the crowdsourcing projects secret, yet among several topics for which it launched projects was one looking at budget airline Flyglobespan, which decided to cancel its scheduled transatlantic flights from Liverpool to New York after a series of set-backs.

The regional publisher said that through its Make The News web-channel, readers with knowledge of the aviation industry supplied information about locating official flight statistics - the Post then broke a story based on this information.

It also claimed to be one of the first news publishers with a story about the same airline's failure to be awarded a specific safety certificate, information it claimed was again sourced through the readership after it had put out a public appeal for information about the troubled carrier.

"Initially, we came up with a few ideas for stories that might be out there and fished for them. We have certainly found a lot of informed opinion that I don't think we would have got any other way than via the web," Neil Benson, Trinity Mirror Regionals editorial director, told Journalism.co.uk.

"The quality of the information that has been put into the stories has been great…you set off with a view of what a story might be and it actually turns out to be something different when people start coming forward. It's a case of the crowd directing the story and the direction it takes."

The paper intends to extend the online project to provide readers with guides on how to get information themselves by means such as using the Freedom of Information Act and attending council meetings.

"The response to Make the News has been very strong, and the Flyglobespan story was proof that, if asked, people who traditionally wouldn't offer information are happy to get involved," said editor Mark Thomas.

"We have a variety of other issues currently ongoing, including city centre roadworks, university education and elderly care. The response has been excellent and will lead to some very strong stories in coming weeks," he added.

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