Yahoo and Reuters launch citizen journalist portal

Citizen journalists will be paid a small fee for their submissions to You Witness News

Yahoo has teamed up with Reuters to launch a portal aimed at collecting media from 'citizen journalists'. 

You Witness News will feature images and video sent in by users to complement stories featured on Yahoo News. 

"The goal is to take advantage of all of the people out there with cellphone cameras or video cameras who may witness breaking news, and give them very easy one-click access to a global news audience online," Scott Moore, head of news and information at Yahoo Media Group, told Information Week. 

Yahoo will collect the images and video, while Reuters will distribute some content to its print and broadcast customers.

Users will be paid a small fee for their submissions. "We intend to compensate users who contribute valuable photos and video, which is partly why we did the partnership with Reuters," added Moore.

Yahoo said that it will provide users with online profiles to share items which they have submitted.

Submissions will apparently be screened to ensure that no fraudulent images or video are included.

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