CNN Gets One Million Citizen Journalists

Remember when “citizen journalism” was a buzzword? When Alive in Baghdad first gained notoriety for teaching aspiring news gatherers in war torn territories basic journalistic principles and techniques, which helped those aspiring news gatherers report on their war torn territories in their own words?

It was a while ago, or a little more specifically, it was probably sometime before or around August 2006 when CNN launched iReport, the cable news channels’ citizen journalism initiative that allows for individuals from around the world to submit video footage and still photographs relating to breaking news stories from their locales

Since then Small World News has expanded its Alive in Baghdad operations to Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, and beyond, “citizen journalism” has become less of a buzzword and more of a (sometimes tragic) component of everyday news reporting, and CNN’s iReport has attracted over 1 million citizen journalists from around the globe.

CNN announced the product thrown to by Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper on a daily basis crossed the seven-figure user threshold this week, just a few months after the launch of Open Story, a component of iReport that allows contributors to tell the story of major ongoing news events together with CNN.

Here’s a look at few of the million plus faces of citizen journalists who contribute to iReport. Click here if you’d like to join them.

Photo of Steve Garfield by Steve Garfield.