30 citizen journalists to find jobs at Northern Echo hyperlocal sites

Posted by Liz Webber on September 4, 2009 at 5:08 PM

Northern Echo, a Newsquest-owned publication, plans to roll out new community websites in the North East and will employ 30 non-journalists to provide content. These citizen journalists will receive training in taking photos, structuring a story, and how to use the newspaper's content management system to upload their work.

Each contributor will be expected to produce an average of three stories per week. Although a Northern Echo reporter will oversee each citizen journalist, editors stressed the independence of the contributors in finding their own style.

The newspaper already has 13 local contributors in the region, while parent company Newsquest hosts several other hyperlocal sites for its publications in the Midlands.

The new initiative at Northern Echo seems to be a middle ground between Associated Northcliffe Digital's network of hyperlocal sites in the South West, to which anyone can contribute, and The New York Times' blog the Local, where community members apply for assignments via the "virtual assignment desk."

Source: Press Gazette