GroundReport was a

citizen journalism Citizen journalism, also known as collaborative media, participatory journalism, democratic journalism, guerrilla journalism, grassroots journalism, or street journalism, is based upon members of the community playing an active role in the pro ...

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 Information technology, digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and service ...

agency. The sale was completed in May 2017.

Beginnings

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

Darfur Darfur ( ; ) is a region of western Sudan. ''Dār'' is an Arabic word meaning "home f – the region was named Dardaju () while ruled by the Daju, who migrated from Meroë , and it was renamed Dartunjur () when the Tunjur ruled the area. ...

as an intern at the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

. 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 ...

incorporated in

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

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

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'' (and before that ''Business Week'' and ''The Business Week''), is an American monthly business magazine published 12 times a year. The magazine debuted in New York City in Septembe ...

'' 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 United States presidential election, Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 2008. The Democratic Party (United States), Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior list of United States senators from Illinois, ...

, the

2008 Mumbai attacks The 2008 Mumbai attacks, also referred to as 26/11 attacks, were a series of coordinated Islamic terrorism, Islamist terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist o ...

, 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 c ...

, and the aftermath of the

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

. According to '' Adweek'', 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 broad ...

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 ...

. 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