CNN’s iReport News Appearing on CNN.com

I enjoy reading the news, and there are a number of websites I read throughout the day, with CNN.com being one of the websites I visit most frequently. I check back on their website often, although I usually stick to the main headlines, as those are generally the most interesting to me.

Just about everyone in the domain industry knows that CNN paid $750,000 to acquire iReport.com from Rick “Domain King” Schwartz in early 2008. On iReport.com, citizen “journalists” can submit “news” stories they feel would be of interest to others. It’s a neat idea to give exposure to people whose articles may be interesting to others.

Sometime in the last year I think, CNN began adding iReports to its CNN.com home page, without identifying the links as iReports until you got to the actual news story. As far as I am aware, there is no real way to filter actual CNN news stories from these iReport articles. It’s frustrating to me when I click a link and end up on an iReport, as I have come to trust the CNN brand rather than random people who submit stories.

I think it was a good strategic move to buy iReport.com and build a brand on it. I think it’s a really bad move to integrate iReport “journalism” with the actual news, as it is annoying for readers like me who don’t want to read this type of “news.”

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

6 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah…..and those articles are trash.

    CNN is almost 100% trash news now or stories that belong in Time magazine, not on a news site.

    They also are wording their story tiles very vaugely so as to get more click-thoughs. Lines like, “Man stares death in the face and lives”. What the heck does that mean? You’ll find out it means nothing after you click though to a lame story about a guy that fell off his house, or something equally ridiculous.

  2. Some call CNN trash. It is what it is. Hasn’t their tag line always been “Headline News” this does not exactly imply that you will get strong investigative journalism. They play to the masses and can you blame them? What is the saying? “feed the masses, eat with the classes”

  3. So in other words Shiphouse……no need to maintain integrity…..just sell out like everyone else does.

    This is what has happened with music and the degradation of it with playlists, TV using a ton of profanity/sex in place of cerebral plots, public parks that used to be free but now gouge the visitor, our nice beaches ruined with condos for only the rich, sporting events that charge $6 for a hotdog or only allow one type of beer since the organizers got bought out for premium placement and exclusion of other beer companies (same with soft drinks).

    This is what makes the U.S. suck in many ways.

    I find it refreshing to go to foreign countries where this mindset has still not taken over, yet I still even see it at the airport. $6 for a luggage cart rental when it is FREE at the airport overseas.

    Where does it stop?

    It’s simply more hollow substance spoon-fed to the ever-increasing ignorant populace and more opportunistic leaches ruining everything that is good or sacred in the U.S.

  4. In addition to CNN, I always check out MSNBC.MSN.com. It has all the major news stories as well as a few local stories. These are clearly attributed to the news sources, e.g. the newspapers reporting them, so you know before you click what the source is.

  5. Tim,

    I agree with you 100% on the quality of CNN’s reporting and content. However, I think it is a jump to say they are selling out, this has been the company’s MO since inception. They deliver “Headline News” that is their tagline. If you want “In Depth” news and reporting seek out other sources and multiple sources.

    They U.S. may suck in allot of ways, but I would argue that your reasonings SUCK as to why the U.S. sucks. Frankly speaking this is not a debate I want to get into. But I will say the following:

    a) All of your examples are capitalism at work. In addition, what the same dynamics are at play in nearly all developed and developing countries. Travel through Europe and take the Sex in Television complaint to a whole new level as free porn is offered in most countries. Go to South Africa for the world cup this year and see if you can get a beer that isn’t sold by S.A.B? Go to Sochi for the 2014 Olympics and tell me a T-Shirt isn’t $100.

    b) Yes – America’s news reporting has become tainted, censored and is delivered with a clear agenda backed by the multi-conglomerate corpoartions that own the agency. But make no mistake reporting and information flow in the U.S. is more free flowing that most anywhere else. Try and speak out against the goverment in Russia or China and see what happens.

    C) Finally, can you tell me what country you travelled to that doesn’t charge for a luggage cart? I think I smell a new business opportunity.

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