Reuters and Yahoo say they're to generously allow people to post news photo-pix and videos on the corporate sites.

"This is looking out and saying, 'What if everybody in the world were my stringers'?" - The New York Times has Chris Ahearn, president of the Reuters media group, stating.

Stringers are freelancers who submit work to the biggies. If their contributions are used, they get paid. And of course, they get paid if they're specifically asked to cover stories.

The camera-folk won't, however, receive anything unless their pix are re-sold to corporate clients, in which case Reuters and Yahoo will benefit across the board.

Because the major media are caught in a major bind. They're losing their relevance as they're out-paced every minute of every day by bloggers and vloggers, who also frequently produce far better material than the professionals.

The R&Y effort, which will certainly be copied by the rest of the pack, is one way to try to get a handle on this dangerous (for the world press corpse) situation.

In partnership with Reuters, Yahoo is, "inviting the public to contribute eyewitness photos and videos of news events, in the latest move to turn spectators into on-the-spot journalists," says Reuters, somehow overlooking the obvious fact that spectators are already on-the-spot journalists, a reality it and its fellow mainstream outlets are determined to both exploit and control.

"The Internet media company said it has created a news contribution system called 'You Witness' and is working with news and information company Reuters Group Plc, which will edit and distribute selected photos to other news outlets," says the story.

"Yahoo plans to run selected images contributed by users as part of topical packages on Yahoo News, which currently offers news from dozens of professional news organizations including Associated Press, CNN and Reuters."

Basic payments, "may be relatively small, but Ahearn said Reuters was likely to pay more to people offering exclusive rights to images of major events," says the NYT.

"For now, no money is changing hands between Yahoo and Reuters, but if Reuters is able to create a separate news service with the user-created material, it will split the revenue with Yahoo."

Wonder who'll get to keep the copyrights?

Stay tuned.

Also See:
The New York Times - Yahoo and Reuters reach out for public's images, December 4, 2004
Reuters - Yahoo partners with Reuters on eyewitness pictures, December 4, 2004