Jeff Jarvis sings the praises of Netzeitung’s new venture (which launched on June 6 of this year) in his column for The Guardian, ‘An Online Revolution that is by and for ‘das volk’.’  Thanks to some elementary knowledge of German, Jarvis has been following Netzeitung since its nascent days.  Dr. Michael Maier, an established journalist and editor, founded the Netzeitung in Berlin in 2000 with 60 reporters.  Six years later, the enterprise is poised to gain a profit of 8 million euros.

• The Readers-Edition is set to take this proven experiment to the next level.  A few essential points:
• Solely citizen journalists produce the content.
• The citizen journalists will pursue “pure” reporting, with no commentary permitted.
• Main topics include politics, sports, technology and business.
• The best work will be published on the main Netzeitung site, with compensation for the journalist.
• Unpaid, yet highly qualified moderators edit all articles.

Jarvis sees Readers-Edition as a potential solution to the plethora of problems facing the fading newspaper industry in the Internet era.  The structure certainly seems promising. 

Source: The Guardian