A "citizen journalism" website which launched in Italy and pays every contributor is looking to make an impact in the UK.
Blasting News says it aims to "disrupt the landscape of traditional journalism offering a decentralised, bottom-up, high quality information system, leveraging on crowdsourcing and continuously updated high-end technology and algorithms applied to online media. Blasting News has a presence in 33 countries, reporting in 23 languages".
The UK version of the site claims 10,000 registered users, which the site calls “Blasters”. The site is open to all, but readers must register in order to contribute stories.
The site, which is based in Switzerland, launched in Italian in 2013 and began expansion into Europe and Latin America in September 2014. It now claims to have over 11m unique monthly users. Most of its monthly unique users, around 8m a month, are in Italy.
According to Blasting News contributors are paid at least €1 per article and up to €150, depending on readership. A spokeswoman said that some contributors make €4,000 a month.
Andrea Manfredi, founder of Blasting News, said: “We are thrilled that the world has welcomed Blasting News with such open arms. This growth shows that people are joining Blasting News, engaging on the site, and contributing great content. We are grateful to every single Blaster for being on this journey with us, and we really feel a sense of responsibility for changing the global landscape of digital information.”
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