Instablog, the blog & citizen journalist network has launched a daily video show called Global Report. The show is styled on the familiar television news format and features short video reports from their reporters in different parts of the world. Check out the screenshot & the video below- the final production is quite impressive. This show is available in different video formats and also for mobile devices, including the iPhone.

The video show is a powerful exposition of citizen journalism at its best. Media consumption habits for certain sections of the society are changing, courtesy the internet. I now spend lesser time reading the morning newspaper, which has been substituted by what I read online- either on online news channels or via the blogosphere. And while my own example is a slightly skewed sample to extrapolate to a larger audience, the change is incrementally perceptible for large swatches of metropolitan India.

Screenshot:

The most challenging thing in producing a video show of this kind is managing the logistics on a continued basis, apart from achieving consistency in production quality. You can do it for a short duration fairly easily but getting this running as a regular show is a demanding exercise. This is what Instablog says “….putting a daily show together of such magnitude has been an adventure in itself. We have writers sending us information putting their own lives at risk to get the truth out. We have literally put together a global news organization using tools which have to be available in even some of the world’s poorest countries….“. I can imagine that.

Instablog (for those who might be unaware) is an excellent social media news website. They have over 25,000 registered members and gets more than 3 million pageviews per month. And you can’t but feel jealous – they are based out of Shimla, the popular hill station in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. WOW! Having an office overlooking the Himalayas – I could kill for that!