US: MTV and AP launch Street Team ’08, CitJ

Posted by Jean Yves Chainon on December 21, 2007 at 2:12 PM

MTV has joined the Associated Press to launch “Street Team ’08,” a project involving 51 citizen journalists, one for each state and Washington D.C., to cover the presidential race and the next Congressional elections.

Weekly reports will be presented through video, blogs, podcasts and animations. They will be available on the Think.MTV.com site, MTV’s mobile service, as well as 1,88 sites in the AP Online Video Network.

Citizen journalists will be representative of MTV’s youthful audience, and will include student newspaper journalists, community organizers and documentary filmmakers.

The program was funded thanks to a $700,000 Knight News Challenge grant from the Knight Foundation.

The AP isn’t the only traditional media brand to rely on citizens for its campaign coverage: most recent example is The New York Times’ collaboration with PurpleState.TV.

Source: Media Post