Sites like Digg specialize in social news, letting users decide what news stories are the most popular. Sites like NowPublic, on the other hand, help citizens become local and professional journalists, engaging them in the process of creating and publishing the events taking place around them. LiveLeak is a little of both, allowing users to create their own videos and stories and publish them for the world to see, while submitting and voting on videos captured from traditional media sources.
LiveLeak was one of the first sites on the web to have the cameraphone video of Saddam Hussein's execution, and drew fire in the UK when a BBC program took note of the graphic nature of some of LiveLeak's video content. The site encourages its users to report and upload footage from real-life events. That material often includes video from war-torn countries, car accidents, and other graphic scenes. The site doesn't censor the uploaded content, although it does have filters for family-friendly and graphic content.
It might seem like LiveLeak subscribes to the "if it bleeds, it leads," philosophy, but some of its content is generated by traditional media sources, and a lot of it is boring. Wire services like Reuters and the Associated Press generate the headlines, while user-generated content make up the features and the majority of the material in LiveLeak's categories. The site only posts a few headline stories from other news outlets. A lot of the "news stories" at LiveLeak are videos generated by users with webcams rambling about their favorite topic.
LiveLeak's categories revolve around the most popular social issues discussed on the site. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are categories, for example, and there's also a politics category. If those don't interest you, you can check out the entertainment, news, or celebrity categories, or start your own. Only the popular categories are listed on the front page, but any user can create a category on their favorite topic. If you dig deep enough you'll find categories about debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories, world music, women's issues, and even how to sport a mullet. There's also a Citizen Journalism category, where amateur videos that are actually newsworthy and produced with some measure of journalistic quality are posted.
LiveLeak users can upload anything they want, so you have to wade through a lot of Webcam manifestos and horrifying car crashes to get to material that's worth watching. You can browse by category to get around a lot of the nonsense, but it's still difficult. If you're looking for a site that's mostly entertainment and silly videos, LiveLeak can help you kill a few hours at the office. Unfortunately, if you're looking for serious journalism or in-depth reporting or analysis by everyday people who are passionate about the world around them, you're better off somewhere like NowPublic.
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