International Herald Tribune to carry stories written by members of the public

The International Herald Tribune, the global newspaper owned by the New York Times, is to carry stories written by members of the public, writes The Guardian.

A deal with a South Korean news website, OhmyNews International, could see so-called “citizen journalists” appearing alongside established writers. The agreement is believed to be an attempt to boost the Herald Tribune’s coverage of Asia.

OhmyNews has been described as a news equivalent of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia written by its users. Anyone can submit an article to OhmyNews and about three-quarters of the stories on the site are the work of the network’s 40,000 non-professional contributors. The rest come from about 50 in-house writers and editors, who also vet the public material to decide what is printed.

A spokesman for the International Herald Tribune was unavailable for comment yesterday, but the company confirmed that an initial deal would see headlines pulled from OhmyNews on to the Tribune’s website.

– Read full story (The Guardian)
– Related story (International Herald Tribune)