RADAR: A New Way to Get Your News [VIDEO]

By Adam Howard
Posted on August 1, 2007, Printed on November 25, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//58515/

This post was written by Stephen Marshall

Looking around the web, it's incredible to see how much the playing field of print media has leveled out. Where major newspapers once exerted almost total dominance over the news cycle, today they are being challenged, and often eclipsed, by alternative news organizations and the ever expanding blogosphere. And when it comes to involving a national readership in the act of reporting and critiquing, the non-traditional news organizations are leaving Big Media in the dust.

But the internet has not brought the same rapid democratization to broadcast news. We know the major news networks are losing viewership, but how many regular, well-produced, hard-hitting net-based alternatives are waiting to take their place? And what about those two generations X and Y who, we are constantly being told, are reading less and less? How many more times can we hear that the majority of young people get their news from Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live before we begin a serious discussion about how broadcast journalists are going to use the web to challenge the major news networks? RADAR was conceived as a response to these questions. Our goal is to create a regular news broadcast that has all the production value of a mainstream show but which tells the stories that so rarely get covered by Big Media.

More, we are seeking to create a network of citizen journalists who send story ideas and video content to our team, which can then be filtered into the show. But right now it starts with this pilot episode and your input. So have a look and then post your comments on the Alternet message board below.

Adam Howard is the editor of PEEK.

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View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers//58515/