Photo: ODD ANDERSEN/2011 AFP
Journalists scrambling to find user-generated content during breaking news events may soon be a thing of the past. NBC News is acquiring the web service Stringwire, which will allow people to hold up their cell phones and stream content directly into NBC’s control rooms. Vivian Schiller, the chief digital officer for NBC News, pointed to the protests in Tahrir Square, the Asiana Airlines crash, and the Boston bombing manhunt, telling the New York Times that during such events, “we might have reporters there, but they may not be in the right places … They may not have the kind of access that eyewitnesses do.” There’s no word yet on whether these contributors will be branded with a silly name, like CNN’s iReporters.
