Pappas Telecasting Companies is joining the citizen journalism movement.
The company announced the launch last week of a new online initiative, CommunityCorrespondent.com, at NTV (Nebraska Television), the company's ABC-affiliated television stations in the Lincoln-Hastings-Kearney, Nebraska area.
CommunityCorrespondent.com seeks to join the Internet with Pappas broadcast television stations by allowing volunteer “community correspondents” to share photos, videos, audio and text with Web users. In addition, the stations in newscasts and in other new program formats reflecting television programming will broadcast selected content from the Web site.
Pappas noted that with advances in technology, more and more people carry still cameras or video cameras with them at all times. ”News crews cannot always be at the right place at the right time,” Pappas said. “With a click of a cell phone camera and by hitting the 'send' button, any user can instantly relay news to the site, thereby determining in that moment what is news.”
Most of Pappas' 27 television stations will be launching their own versions of CommunityCorrespondent.com over the next 60 days.