NEW YORK (GroundReport)– Citizen journalism platform GroundReport.com provided crucial coverage of the Mumbai terrorist attacks last week, breaking updates hours ahead of mainstream outlets and marking a sea change in the way news is gathering and disseminated.
The ten coordinated terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, began on November 26, 2008 and claimed over 170 lives before Indian forces regained control on Saturday, November 29th. As Indian citizen journalists adeptly covered the attacks through Twitter, Flickr and YouTube, GroundReport served a key role in culling sophisticated accounts of the attacks, providing vetted updates and local context that other formats lacked.
GroundReport.com is a global citizen journalism portal that allows anyone to publish news articles and videos and earn a share of revenues based on traffic. GroundReport’s trusted community of over 3,000 contributors has published over 35,000 stories, vetted by a Wikipedia-style corps of volunteer editors.
GroundReport published its first story on the Mumbai attacks less than one hour after the Taj Hotel siege, at 23:48 UTC. Immediately thereafter GroundReport became one of the first Western news outlets to feature a full article on its homepage, before sites like CNN.com.
Over the course of the 60-hour standoff, GroundReport contributors publishedmore than 80 original, on-the-ground reports from contributors in India. Coverage included videos, text reporting, photos, and opinion pieces. A truly next-generation news outlet, GroundReport used Twitter to contact additional reporters in Mumbai for coverage in the initial hours of the attacks.
“As our thoughts and prayers go out to our friends in Mumbai, there is no doubt that citizen journalists played a pivotal role in breaking news amid the devastation of last week’s Mumbai attacks, “ said GroundReport Founder Rachel Sterne. “Citizen journalism has proven itself an valuable component of the media landscape.”
GroundReport’s breaking citizen journalism coverage of the Mumbai attacks was recognized by Agence France-Presse, BBC, The Guardian, The Economic Times, The Age, Wired and TechCrunch.
GroundReport is continuing its call for citizen journalists from Southeast Asia and the larger international community. Interested reporters can register at https://www.groundreport.com/register.php
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