By PATRICK McGROARTY 41 minutes ago
BERLIN (AP) Germany's largest newspaper is looking to expand and not by hiring new reporters.
Bild has partnered with discount grocery chain Lidl to sell a basic-function digital camera in a bid to recruit a legion of citizen journalists to contribute images to its coverage.
'We can't cover everything,' said Michael Paustian, a managing editor for the newspaper with a circulation of 3.3 million copies Monday through Saturday. 'We think it is an advance for journalism.'
The pocket-sized, euro69.99 ($89) camera has 2 gigabytes of memory and can shoot both still pictures and video. It comes with software and gps with backup camera a USB port that allows 'reader-reporters' to upload content directly to editors who will be assigned specifically to review it for publication on Bild's Web site or in print.
Users can also upload their videos directly from the camera to the video hosting site YouTube.
Bild spokesman Tobias Froehlich said the goal was to encourage camera owners to seek the widest exposure for their work. 'It's not about exclusivity,' he said.
Bild's initiative fits in with a broader trend for traditional media to turn their increasingly interactive readers into news providers.
One site, NowPublic.com, gathers photos, video and news tips from the public and distributes them to news organizations. The trend is likely to continue as traditional news providers scramble to match readers' and genius camera advertisers' migration to the Internet.
Bild, known for breaking major political stories as well as front-page spreads on zoo animals and celebrities, will use the new cameras to streamline an existing program that brings in thousands of photos each day by e-mail and text message, Froehlich said. The paper has published 9,000 of those images since 2006.
Froehlich said the paper may pay for top-quality images it uses or establish a contest for the best content submitted each week; details would be worked out after gauging demand for the cameras that go on sale Thursday.
'There will certainly be something, but there's been no official decision yet,' Froehlich said.
By turning to its audience for breaking news, Bild is staking out new territory in a movement that has already driven successful independent media platforms elsewhere. One of the first was OhmyNews, a Web site founded in South Korea in 2000 of entirely of user-generated reportage and commentary.
In the U.S., a host of bloggers and amateur journalists have founded hyper-local news sites to cover communities left behind by traditional newspapers that have cut staff and trimmed pages.
Increasingly, Internet users are also influencing the flow of information once dominated by papers or television in less organized ways.
During terrorist attacks on hotels and other targets last week in Mumbai, India, bloggers and members of social networking sites like Twitter provided updates that often outpaced those from traditional news organizations.
But some journalism watchdogs in Germany are worried that Bild's new media experiment will lower standards and digital camera with optical viewfinder interfere with professional reporting.
Eva Werner, a spokeswoman for the German Journalists' Association, said she fears Bild's amateur photographers could undermine the work of their full-time counterparts by ambushing celebrities or interfering with police work at the scene of an accident.
'It poses a threat to quality journalism, the more images from nonprofessionals that are pushed onto the market even though professional images are available,' Werner said.
Paustian said he thought the opposite was true.
'We're not YouTube,' Paustian said, 'Every contribution will be viewed, reviewedjournalistically evaluated.'
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