Much has been made of the possibilities of “citizen reporting” or “user-generated content.”

See Jonathan Dube’s 3 Degrees of User-Generated Content

A variant of these ideas is the concept of distributed reporting or crowd-sourcing - whereby the public formally or informally helps to contribute reporting or content to a news organization, which filters it as part of the newsgathering process.

Sounds interesting - but expensive and time-consuming, right?

Here’s 5 Ways for alts to use distributed reporting now - incorporate it into your music coverage.

• Verify your reporting - doublecheck quotes and descriptive details captured on film or audio.
• Enhance your end product by including citizen-gathered media.
• Broaden your perspective by reading other’s accounts before composing your own.
• Connect with potential sources and witnesses.
• Communicate with readers. Let them know you checked out their work, and post a link to your final story.

Here’s a quick example of how I used distributive reporting to enhance a recent blog post.

I went to Coachella 2007 last weekend - and was pleased as punch to spot Paris Hilton in the crowd of the CSS show, during the song “Meeting Paris Hilton” - and even happier to get a picture with her afterwards in the corn line. [See blog post on LauraFries.com.] I had some reported materials for my story - my notes and photos. But - what else was out there? What did I, as one reporter, miss?

A quick search of Flickr (photos), YouTube (video) and Technorati (blog search engine) for “paris coachella” turned up a plethora of materials - some of which I ended up including in my final blog post - pictures of CSS with Paris, video of CSS performing the song, and even a picture of Paris, corn in hand!

With help from “citizen reporters,” I was able to create a fuller blog post.

Of course, distributed reporting shouldn’t be limited to arts and entertainment coverage. Did your city recently have an immigration march? Are you working on a story about it? How about giving distributed reporting aggregators like Flickr, YouTube, and Technorati a quick search?