Time Warner's CNN will let citizen journalists play a greater role in news gathering, and has standardized a process to let them do so online.

CNN has created a program to let users submit digital audio and video of breaking news, allowing them to either email or upload "I-Reports" directly on CNN's site, reports Reuters. Editors check the contributions before they're posted on a new website, CNN Exchange - both a repository of user-generated audio and video and a place to interact with others.

More and more, citizen journalists armed with digital and cell-phone cameras and video recorders are capturing events as they happen, before journalists are even dispatched to breaking-news sites. And they're often posted on blogs and personal sites before they reach mainstream media.