GroundReport
Encyclopedia
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
platform that enables anyone to submit original news and opinion for publication to an international audience. With a mission to 'democratize the media,' GroundReport's contributors report from the scene of world events to add local, firsthand insight to international news. To establish trust, GroundReport uses a Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
-like model of volunteer editors and community feedback, combined with a 5-star rating system. Contributors retain rights to their work, and can choose from a range of Creative Commons
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
licenses. In May 2009, GroundReport implemented a vetting system that requires review and approval of every contributor. GroundReport has a strict copyright policy and distributed vetting system. Plagiarized and copyright-infringing material is prohibited from GroundReport, and offending users are banned from the site.
The New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
-based company was founded by Rachel Sterne in 2006, inspired by her work reporting on Darfur
Darfur
Darfur is a region in western Sudan. An independent sultanate for several hundred years, it was incorporated into Sudan by Anglo-Egyptian forces in 1916. The region is divided into three federal states: West Darfur, South Darfur, and North Darfur...
as an intern at the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. A digital news network, GroundReport is syndicated to Google News
Google News
Google News is a free news aggregator provided by Google Inc, selecting recent items from thousands of publications by an automatic aggregation algorithm....
.
According to Adweek, GroundReport received 29,187 unique visitors in December 2010, down from 60,802 monthly unique visitors earlier that year. The same article questioned GroundReport's influence as a news organization: "Even during major events, GroundReport's influence was very small. As the BBC News reported in an article on Dec. 1, 2008, following terror attacks in Mumbai that had been covered on the site, 'it is worth noting that the original story on the GroundReport Web site has attracted fewer than 200 viewers so far, whereas untold millions have watched television reports in India and around the world.'"
In June 2008, GroundReport started using the YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
API for its on-demand video publishing. Shortly thereafter, GroundReport became an official partner channel, and a flagship participant in their newly launched 'reporter' category. Among YouTube's official Beijing Olympics content partners, including the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
and New York Times, GroundReport was the only citizen news source.
In the livestreaming space, GroundReport is a featured flagship channel on broadcast platform Livestream
Livestream
Livestream, formerly known as Mogulus, is a live streaming video platform that allows users to view and broadcast video content using a camera and a computer through the internet...
. GroundReport's live video coverage of the Democratic Debates, Aspen Institute
Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1950 as the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies. The organization is dedicated to "fostering enlightened leadership, the appreciation of timeless ideas and values, and open-minded dialogue on contemporary issues." The...
and panel discussions with leaders like Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington is a Greek American author and syndicated columnist. She is best known as co-founder of the news website The Huffington Post. A popular conservative commentator in the mid-1990s, she adopted more liberal political beliefs in the late 1990s...
and Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Albright
Madeleine Korbelová Albright is the first woman to become a United States Secretary of State. She was appointed by U.S. President Bill Clinton on December 5, 1996, and was unanimously confirmed by a U.S. Senate vote of 99–0...
has been featured on Huffington Post, Salon
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, Silicon Alley Insider and TechCrunch
TechCrunch
TechCrunch is a web publication that offers technology news and analysis, as well as profiling of startup companies, products, and websites. It was founded by Michael Arrington in 2005, and was first published on June 11, 2005....
.
In a CNNMoney interview, founder Sterne spoke live with a contributor from Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
and described plans to expand GroundReport with regional editions. On September 17, 2008, GroundReport launched an Editor Program enabling selected contributors to revise all content on the site. Coverage in 2008 included personal narratives of election day and breaking updates during the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Sterne was named one of 'America's Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs' by BusinessWeek in 2009. GroundReport's major recent coverage has included the Iranian protests and Haiti earthquake aftermath.