MTV Election Coverage is a Coup for Citizen Journalism
As part of MTV’s coverage of the 2008 presidential elections in the US, the media network assembled a “street team” of 51 amateur journalists — one in each state and the District of Columbia — to file blog reports, photos, videos, and audio podcasts about election issues during the course of the campaign season. The videos are being syndicated to MTV’s mobile web site, social network, and to the Associate Press Online Video Network. Members of the street team have been outfitted with laptops, video phones, and other popular tools of the citizen journalist via funding from a $700,000 grant from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation’s Knight News Challenge.
MTV got 700k for that? And did anyone even measure the impact (i.e. pageviews)? My bet is that it was a colossal waste of money.