Examiner.com snaps up citizen-journalism hub NowPublic

September 1, 2009 | Camille Ricketts | Comments | |

Examiner.com, the media company known best for its right-leaning owner, Philip Anschutz, announced that it has purchased citizen journalism-driven web site NowPublic. The price was undisclosed, but PaidContent pegged the sale price $25 million.

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The site collects and disseminates news articles from hundreds of writers in 160 countries around the globe, most without any journalistic training. Its connection to location is particularly interesting, allowing viewers to easily find news relevant to their local areas.

This is the feature that probably appeals most to Examiner.com and its parent company, Clarity Digital Group. While the site will continue to stand on its own, its technology will be used to strengthen and scale Examiner’s existing portfolio of 109 local news portals that popped up last year. Specifically, it plans to expand into markets in the U.K., Australia, India and the Philippines.

The New York Times lumps the deal in with others like it — highlighting a trend toward big media companies acquiring hyperlocal news tools. Prime among them is AOL’s June acquisition of Patch and Going, two startups that track local news and events in New Jersey and Connecticut and San Francisco, respectively. These announcements are also indicative of citizen journalism’s more legitimate role in the mainstream media. All signs point to more major media organizations relying on user-generated content, especially as traditional print news outlets falter and local advertising continues to generate revenue.

Based in Vancouver, the four-year-old NowPublic is unique in its use of amateur reporters — essentially taking Examiner’s model a step further. Only a year old, the latter has grown rapidly from 60 paid contributors, referred to as “examiners,” in five cities to 16,000, now drawing 17 million unique visitors a month. The company says its NowPublic buy will increase its number of contributors to 30,000.

NowPublic previously raised $12 million between a $1.4 million angel round in 2006 and a $10.6 million first round of venture financing in 2007 from Brightspark Ventures, Rho Capital Ventures and GrowthWorks Capital. Rose Tech Ventures provided seed money.

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About the Author, Camille Ricketts

Camille is the lead writer for GreenBeat. She came to VentureBeat from Google where she worked on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. Before that, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London. Follow her on Twitter at @camillericketts, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

With GreenBeat 2009, VentureBeat's all-star conference on all things Smart Grid, coming up in November, Camille will be expanding coverage of this exciting space. Stay up to date by following @greenbeat2009 on Twitter or by becoming a fan of the event on Facebook here.

  • AndreaF
    Can you explain how the citizen journalists are paid/rewarded?
    thanks
  • Cypresso
    As a former member and guest editor of NowPublic, I will make some editorial comment here. From my experience, this merger will not benefit the public, nor will it benefit the NowPublic members. As it stands now, NowPublic restricts members on various levels, and is very indiscriminate at times on how they censor contributors. This new merger will impose even more limitations from what I have learned by visiting the Houston Examiner.com site and seeing how it is set up, and the limitations that are there versus a community journalism site.

    Examiner.com does not appear to actually be a community journalism site that allows the writers the freedom to truly write what they may chose and express themselves about. Certainly some of the member comments on NowPublic do reflect most of what I express here.