Welcome to Britain's first dedicated citizen journalism news portal. The-Latest.Com was founded, in January 2006, by Marc Wadsworth, who is the editor. The site offers exciting opportunities to blog, publish words and images and be involved in video streaming and podcasts. It has constantly updated community, national and international Latest News, and features instant polls on topical subjects open to all its visitors.
Our wide-ranging text and image content, provided by our member contributors, includes entertainment, music, world, politics and general news and interviews and fun Things to make you go ooh! In addition, there are helpful events listings, as well as book and entertainment reviews. Details of events can be sent to The-Latest for inclusion on the site. You can upload music and other audio.
Members can take part in forum discussions and comment on stories. An Image Galleries section is available where members can upload interesting pictures or even showcase photos in their own personalised gallery. Novice members are supported by professional journalists, who edit the content and provide portfolio-standard published material for contributors, many of whom have never before had this sort of creative opportunity.
Our members have gone on to work for a variety of news media organisations as a result of the skills they learned on the site. We have pulled off notable scoops, including the one that led to the firing of the Mayor of London's chief political advisor and spin doctor James McGrath that went global. Press Gazette, the trade paper of the British newspaper industry, headlined a full page article about McGrathgate: "Citizen journalism takes first UK scalp". We have also:
▪ Backed the families of murdered tourists Scarlett Keeling and Stephen Bennett in their fight for justice
▪ Exposed mismanagement and corruption in the health service and art world
▪ Uncovered city hall cronyism and sleaze
▪ Carried eyewitness reports and blogs from around the world
▪ Campaigned against a Jamaica-based cyberstalker hounding a British couple
▪ Supported community groups to get their news published
▪ Reported the English riots of August 2011 from the ground up
▪ Run the internationally-acclaimed Street Photographer of the Year competition with big backers
▪ Nurtured new writers and photographers and showcased their work.
See what notable people have to say in testimonials about the site.
Whether a news junkie or casual browser, the site is for YOU. It is a people's journalism website with information the rest of the news media has either ignored or forgotten. We'll help you have fun ferreting out the facts, writing stories as well as taking pictures and posting the results on the internet for all to view.
No longer do we have to make unheeded demands of the BBC or put ourselves at the mercy of greedy media tycoons like Rupert Murdoch or Silvio Berlusconi to be heard. Public participation in The-Latest citizen journalism will ensure that we deliver your news agenda of choice, will always question "the official line" of powerful organisations and expose their lies, vice and folly.
Feel free to put your news or blog on the website. Or upload newsy photos and videos from your camera phone: a celeb you spotted, a news event you captured. London-based professional journalists will edit your contribution so that you have something to be proud of and can keep in your portfolio as published work. If we are able to sell on your contribution, you will be rewarded financially.
The-Latest.Com is not primarily a news conduit for the mainstream media but an alternative space for a public cheesed off with the narrow, biased agenda of the press and broadcast editors. Newspapers and TV stations would like citizen journalism to be just intrepid digital camera-wielding, unpaid members of the public beefing up their tired newsgathering operations rather than an independent, mass-participatory website.
Here is some advice on how to find news. Huge historical events have been recorded by vigilant members of the public. Remember that the explosive pictures of Rodney King being beaten by Los Angeles police were caught on amateur video. And much of the dramatic evidence in the investigation of London's 7/7 and the terrorist attack on America of 9/11 came from people's camera phones and amateur video as did shocking images of the Asian tsunami and, in 2008, the Chinese earthquake and disaster in Myanmar (Burma).
The-Latest is proud of our news scoops and eyewitness citizen reporting from Jordan, India, Colombia, Brazil, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, Beirut and the troubles in Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe, Romania and Poland. We also covered the historic battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination to be American President in an unrivalled alternative way.
We did the same for the race to the White House between Obama and John McCain. Our website has useful links to other sites. And, for subscribers, we provide handy journalism advice. For instance, we have lucrative tips on how to successfully sell a story or a picture through The-Latest to a major news outlet. Be first with the news uncovered on The-Latest.com