Guardian launches GuardianWitness to encourage ‘open journalism’

The Guardian has today launched a new digital platform that will allow readers to contribute to live news and other content in a bid to build upon its “open journalism” publishing drive.

Launched at the Newsworks’ Shift 2013 event, GuardianWitness will allow readers to submit photos, videos and text directly through to Guardian journalists via their website and dedicated iPhone and Android apps.

The platform has been built in partnership with mobile operator EE and will mean that users can share content with the Guardian’s editorial team within a matter of seconds from across the globe.

Guardian journalists will be able to view and select contributions as they are submitted and all submissions will be vetted by community co-ordinators before being published.

“At the Guardian we have a long history of getting our readers involved in our journalism,” said Joanna Geary, the Guardian’s social and communications editor.

“GuardianWitness will further reinforce our recognition that journalism is now a two-way conversation and will open up our site as we never have before.

“Not only will this make it even easier for our readers to get involved in our journalism and form both local and global communities of joint interest, it will also provide our journalists with a fantastic new tool, providing them with insights and views that we perhaps don’t yet have access to.”

The Guardian is not the first to offer a platform that encourages social journalism.

Newsflare, an online video news community that was founded in 2011, is a platform for user generated video content that specialises in covering breaking news that might be too remote or too local for traditional news organisations to acquire.

Both amateur and professional journalists can upload videos to the site, receiving revenue for each video that is sold to a news organisation.

There is no indication that the Guardian will be offering revenue for any content, however contributions will also feature on a separate GuardianWitness website, where readers can view all of the photographs and videos that journalists have chosen to publish.