All eyes on iReport.com

by Jaqueta Abbey

A screenshot of CNN's iReport.com home page

Have you ever seen a news story on air and thought, "Gee, I could do better?" Well, with CNN’s iReport.com, you can try your hand at creating and submitting your own story and it might just end up on television! CNN has already harnessed the power of Twitter to complement its news programming by encouraging its audience to get involved, and iReport.com takes it a step further.

Background

Originally its own entity, iReport.com was launched in August 2006 in order for people to contribute their stories, photos and videos from around the world. iReport was not purchased by CNN until January 2008, and then underwent a relaunch, with the newly renovated site debuting two months later.

What is unique about iReport?

iReport stories are not edited, fact-checked or screened before posted, but stories that are examined and investigated by CNN are marked with the site’s favicon (a white “i" in a red box).

Not only is viewer content submitted instantly to the Web site, producers from CNN go through the online contributions and choose pieces to possibly be aired on the various CNN platforms.

One criticism of iReport is that contributors are not paid for their submissions, and seeing that CNN is a corporate news network they should be able to. Another criticism is that though users are granted copyright of their contributions, they must give up control of who uses their work.

iReport features

The site is set up so that people can send in contributions as well as network with fellow contributors. Contributors can create profiles that show their statistics (how many reports they have uploaded, how many comments they have posted, etc.), hometown, occupation and interests, among other things. If you really like contributors' stories, there’s a button on their profile for you to subscribe to their RSS feed.

Another large section of the site is the “Assignment Desk," where CNN proposes topics that people can submit stories about to possibly end up on CNN. CNN also helps iReporters by giving tips on what makes up a good story, how to take great photographs, how to shoot good video, and how to record sound for a story.

Finally, you can look at an interactive international map that pinpoints the location that the top iReports are sent from. It can be sorted by what has been featured on CNN, what are the “newsiest” (and vetted by CNN), the latest reports, the most viewed, the most shared, and the most commented on. The map can also be sorted by the location of iReporters themselves.