BusinessTN

The coordinated suicide bombings that shook London on July 7, 2005, served as a stark reminder of the continued threat that radical Islamic fundamentalists posed to the United States and its allies. For Parker Polidor, now 32, and his brother, Colin Polidor, 29, the bombings were also the genesis of a company.

During the days following the attacks, images captured by media camera crews gave way to those submitted by London citizens who had been armed with handheld phones with video capability when the attacks occurred. Equally apparent, the media was neither prepared nor technologically equipped to receive and process all of these submissions quickly enough, causing much of the content to be significantly delayed or never released.

To meet this need, the Polidor brothers, David Lipscomb graduates who co-founded and later sold a valet parking service in the Northeast, founded Cell Journalist. Meant to serve as a "turnkey platform for local media," the company facilitates how content is submitted, received and processed.

The company's formation has coincided nicely with the rise of "citizen journalism." The increasing affordability and quality of technology such as the iPhone, Blackberry, digital phones and other gadgets have allowed citizens to capture groundbreaking images and videos of stories as they unfold. Meanwhile, a persistent downward economic shift in the publishing industry (and the economy in general) has led media companies everywhere to search for new strategies in cutting costs while maintaining output.

Cell Journalist strives to be one of those "new strategies." And so far, they're succeeding.

In December, the company forged an agreement with media industry leader E.W. Scripps, extending its already existing contract with the Knoxville News Sentinel and Memphis Commercial Appeal to all 15 of Scripps' newspapers across nine states.

"The deal with Scripps shows that local media outlets are very serious about user-generated content," Parker Polidor says.

The company has similar deals with major players such as Raycom, Gatehouse Media, Young Broadcasting, Dispatch Publishing and Media General (representing more than 60 TV stations and 15 newspapers between them). While no current agreement exists with powerhouse Gannett Co., the Polidors remain optimistic about future deals.

"Currently, we are working with 40 media properties and expect this number to more than double in the next twelve months," Polidor says.

The company has also garnered some media attention of its own, as it has been mentioned by outlets such as CNBC, Forbes and Newsweek. And though Cell Journalist is not the only user-generated content middle man out there, Polidor says his company offers more than competing services such as VMIX, Kickapps and MyCapture.

"What makes our platform different from our competitors is that we allow content to come directly from camera phones," Polidor says. "Our software allows this breaking news content to be online or on-air in as little as 90 seconds."

To a large extent, Cell Journalist's fortunes will rise or fall with the fate of citizen journalism. Mark Glaser, a freelance journalist for USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review who has written extensively on the subjects of online media and blogs, says the trend of citizen journalism has its advantages.

"News organizations, reporters and TV camera crews can't be everywhere at once," Glaser says. "So, having citizens on the scene means that you get more viewpoints of breaking news as it happens."

Still, Cell Journalist and other citizen-based media platforms face the dual challenges of guaranteeing authenticity of content and becoming accepted among mainstream media giants. "The editors who distribute these on-the-scene videos need to do fact-checking to make sure they are legit," Glaser explains. "There are ways to check up on someone's story, get a phone number, call them, ask them about details at the scene. There will be mistakes made, but there are mistakes made by journalists, as well."

Regardless, the impact of citizen journalism has been undeniable in the recent coverage of events. For example, a photo received on Twitter was one of the first images of the US Airways flight 1549 that crashed into the Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009. Another video of the New Year's Day shooting of twenty-two-year-old Oscar Grant in Oakland, Calif., has led to the arrest of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer responsible for his death.

In other words, it appears citizen journalism is here to stay. And that's good news for the Polidor brothers.