The Associated Press said on Friday that it will start using news contributed by non-professionals, or, to use the blogger shorthand, “citizen journalists” joining other media companies including CNN and South Korea’s OhmyNews.

The AP said it will take news submitted to NowPublic.com, a Web site that counts about 60,000 contributors, ranging from simple eyewitness accounts to originally produced content.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, made this point when we spoke on Friday:

“News organizations long ago had stringer systems that were more elaborate than they are now. … It was not unusual to have neighborhood editors who were skilled at managing these contributors, giving them some skills, editing their copy. There’s an element of that here.”

Jim Kennedy, vice president and director of strategic planning at the AP, explained the decision to work with NowPublic, in an interview:

“The technology and consumption habits of the audience have changed so dramatically and permanently that we feel that we need to reach out to these sources of information. We’re living in a world where literally everybody is on the scene in almost any event.”

Will the AP use contributors’ photos? Yes. What about stories? Reporting may be woven into stories, Kennedy said. What about original, bylined stories? Possibly, he said.

Other questions I asked AP’s Kennedy:

• What about blogs? NowPublic.com features plenty of commentary in addition to raw descriptions of events. “We don’t see setting up blogs. … This is to capture news as it happens and not necessarily repurpose existing blog content.”
• Is this equivalent to outsourcing the news? Get it on the cheap instead of hire more reporters? “This is not aimed at that at all,” Kennedy said.
• What about hiring more editors to handle fact-checking, verification, etc.? “We’re deployed to handle a lot of content. We don’t foresee this thing adding necessarily to that burden,” Kennedy said.

Rosenstiel spoke to that last point in our interview:
“Those who are truly skeptical of the Internet might think this is a terrible thing, that journalism is something only for professionals — that, if the AP, of all places, enlists citizens to help gather the news, that the sky is really falling… If the AP is able to manage its standards and engage citizens as watchers and gatherers, that’s probably a new turn on citizen journalism. That’s not the sky falling, that’s the sky opening up somewhat.”

And speaking of fact-checking, I interviewed one of the principals of NowPublic.com, Leonard Brody, in December in a get-to-know-you chat. Here are the salient points regarding today’s news with the AP:

• “Citizen journalism” does not replace the profession of journalism, he said. “It’s like saying to someone you’re going to be a citizen dentist. … You have professional journalists who are content packagers and understand how to write and to report and to deliver… And what we have are the eyes and ears.”
• How do you check facts? Brody said NowPublic is building a team of volunteer editors who can flag content as spam, abuse and reviews some content to see if it is just plain wrong.
• Do you pay your contributors? The basic answer is: some will be paid, and the company will announce its strategy this year. “You will have people on this site who will be able to make a living as citizen journalists.”

(Photo: Reuters)
(Updates to fix typo in first paragraph)