CNN

In the summer of 2009, I had the itch to report again. I created a profile on CNN iReport and began to cover acts of the First Amendment in Washington, D.C.. From the scene or back at home, I uploaded, tagged and spread the content through Twitter in  effort to strike up a conversation.

In three months, nine uploads were approved for air. The videos drew thousands of views and engaged the community with hundreds of comments. The iReport community nominated me one of their top video journalists, and on the final video I did in 2009, I was invited into the studio to discuss my coverage live.

Through CNN iReport, I discovered a formula for a producing web-ready news. I made contextual changes to how the story was told – I took less obvious angles to tell stories hidden inside issues that drove national news. To keep the content authentic, I taught myself to focus less on technical perfection – and to focus on the subjects. So each time, I just went out there, met people, and asked them to share their piece of the story so we could all try and understand the rest.

Results

Hunger Strike at the White House

I did three videos of a Hunger Strike in front of the White House. Each Sunday night, I shot, edited and produced a story. Each Monday, I received a call from a CNN employee in Atlanta, fact checking, asking me for an estimate of the participants, etc. And then they approved it for air.

National Equality March on the National Mall

I tried the experiment again – covering the National Equality March. This round, I didn’t have time to edit anything, so I did a series of live shots and selected three to upload to CNN’s brand new iPhone app. I was given a call the following morning and asked to describe my experience. A few hours later, I received an invitation from CNN to come in and do a live interview. I was happy to do it – and with it, felt my approach had been validated. But even more, the experience taught me that networks have an unmet demand for my style of content, but lack a way to pay for it.