GroundReport was a

citizen journalism Citizen journalism, also known as collaborative media, participatory journalism, democratic journalism, guerrilla journalism or street journalism, is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, a ...

website that enabled contributors to publish news reports and videos. The site was owned by a nonprofit organization called Open News Platform until mid-2017. Since the site did not attract enough donations and advertisement revenue to sustain it, Open News Platform sold the GroundReport.com domain and platform to Search-Ladder, LLC in 2017. Search-Ladder is a

digital marketing Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development duri ...

agency. The sale was completed in May 2017.

Beginnings

Journalist

Rachel Sterne Rachel Haot (née Sterne) is an American businesswoman and entrepreneur. She was most recently Executive Director of the Transit Innovation Partnership, a public-private initiative of the Partnership for New York City and the Metropolitan Transpor ...

started GroundReport.com in 2006. She wanted to make such a site after her experience reporting on

Darfur Darfur ( ; ar, دار فور, Dār Fūr, lit=Realm of the Fur) is a region of western Sudan. ''Dār'' is an Arabic word meaning "home f – the region was named Dardaju ( ar, دار داجو, Dār Dājū, links=no) while ruled by the Daju, ...

as an intern at the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

. To run GroundReport, Sterne started Open News Platform, a not-for-profit

501(c)(3) organization A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of t ...

incorporated in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. In 2008, Sterne expressed a wish to expand GroundReport with regional editions. In 2009, ''

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' named Sterne one of "America's Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs".

Content

GroundReport used a Wikipedia-like model of volunteer editors and community feedback, combined with a star rating system. Contributors chose from a range of

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

licenses. On September 17, 2008, select contributors were given the ability to revise content in any article. 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. Contributors who plagiarized or posted copyright-infringing material were banned from the site. Among the news stories covered by GroundReport's contributors were the

United States presidential election of 2008 The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator fr ...

, the

2008 Mumbai attacks The 2008 Mumbai attacks (also referred to as 26/11, pronounced "twenty six eleven") were a series of Terrorism, terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist terrorist organisation from P ...

, the

2009 Iranian presidential election protests After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests broke out in major cities across Iran in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The protests co ...

, and the aftermath of the

2010 Haiti earthquake A disaster, catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (department), Ouest department, a ...

. According to ''

Adweek ''Adweek'' is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1979. ''Adweek'' covers creativity, client–agency relationships, global advertising, accounts in review, and new campaigns. During this time, it has cover ...

'', GroundReport received 29,187 unique visitors in December 2010, down from 60,802 monthly unique visitors earlier that year. The ''Adweek'' journalist commented: "Even during major events, GroundReport's influence was very small. As the

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

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.'" GroundReport's content was syndicated to

Google News Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines. Google News is available as an app on Android, iOS, and the Web. Google rel ...

. In July 2015, volunteers from Injustice Anywhere began to help with restructuring, and a redesign of GroundReport.com launched on September 22, 2015.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Groundreport American news websites Citizen journalism Internet properties established in 2006

Beginnings

Content

References

Further reading

External links