Yahoo News, Reuters Find New Way to Run Terrorist Propaganda

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Yahoo News and Reuters want regular people to send them photos from their personal devices. This way, terrorists don't have to merely give propaganda to journalists in Iraq, they can send it directly to the editors back home. Reports the New York Times:

Hoping to turn the millions of people with digital cameras and camera phones into photojournalists, Yahoo and Reuters are introducing an effort to showcase photographs and video of news events submitted by the public.

Starting Tuesday, the photos and videos submitted will be placed throughout Reuters.com and Yahoo News, the most popular news Web site in the United States, according to comScore MediaMetrix.

Reuters said it would also start to distribute some of the submissions next year to the thousands of print, online and broadcast media outlets that subscribe to its news service. Reuters said it hoped to develop a service devoted entirely to user-submitted photographs and video.

"There is an ongoing demand for interesting and iconic images," said Chris Ahearn, president of the Reuters media group. He said the agency had always bought newsworthy pictures from individuals and part-time contributors known as stringers.

"This is looking out and saying, 'What if everybody in the world were my stringers?'" Ahearn said.

The project is among the most ambitious efforts in what has become known as citizen journalism: attempts by bloggers, start-up local news sites and global news organizations like CNN and the BBC to see whether readers and viewers can also become reporters.