Detail map of London, England, United Kingdom Overview map of London, England, United Kingdom

A: London, England, United Kingdom

The BBC May be the First Mainsteam Industrial Medium to Adopt User-Generated Content

7/7/2005
The Buncefield Fuel Depot fire, taken 10 minutes after the explosion

The Buncefield Fuel Depot fire, taken 10 minutes after the explosion

In the wake of the July 7, 2005 London bombings and the Buncefield oil depot fire, the British Broadcast Corporation (BBC) expanded its user-generated content team, established in April 2005. After the Buncefield disaster the BBC received over 5,000 photos from viewers. This may be the beginning of adoption of citizen-generated journalism by mainstream industrial media.

In 2006 CNN launched CNN iReport, a project designed to bring user generated news content to CNN. Its rival Fox News Channel launched its project to bring in user-generated news, similarly titled "uReport". This was typical of major television news organizations during 2005 and 2006. They realized, particularly in the wake of the London 7 July bombings, that citizen journalism could now become a significant part of broadcast news.

Timeline Themes