Users fuel news at Germany's Bild

HAMBURG, Germany, Jan 22 (Reuters) When a lovesick German got marooned in Montana after typing the wrong destination in his Internet plane booking, he sold his story to a popular paper and -- as Germany's ''biggest fool'' -- earned cash to try again.

Tobias Gutt 21, flew half way around the world in the wrong direction towards the small US town of Sidney -- instead of towards his heart's desire in Sydney, Australia -- before realising his blunder.

Dim-witted in booking, Gutt was smart enough to know he had a story to tell, and offered his ''Oh-what-a-fool-am-I!'' tale to Germany's Bild newspaper, the daily that has embraced ''citizen journalists'' in the last eight months.

Bild splashed his story of stupidity over half a page.

''It worked out well for everyone,'' Bild editor-in-chief Kai Diekmann told Reuters. ''I couldn't imagine getting by any more without our citizen journalists. They bring stories and pictures that we wouldn't be able to get ourselves.'' Bild was not the first in Germany to rely on user-generated content (UGC), but it has most enthusiastically broken through a stuffy reluctance among newspapers here since it started publishing unusual pictures and stories supplied by readers.

A picture of French soccer star Zinedine Zidane having a lonely cigarette on his hotel balcony, a German pop celebrity caught kissing a woman who was not his wife, and a German soccer player urinating in a car park have been among the reader shots.

''We're constantly amazed by the creativity and quality of reader reporters,'' said Diekmann, whose tenth-floor office commands a spectacular view over the centre of Hamburg.

''We look at the pictures that come in and say No way, that can't be true!','' he said, flashing a wide smile.

Diekmann said a growing team of 10 staffers works full time to check the veracity of users' material and ensure photos have not been manipulated.

''Nothing gets into the paper until we're certain that it's true,'' he said. ''Once in a while someone tries to slip a hoax past us, but it's the great exception and we always catch it.'' THE RIGHT INSTINCTS Bild receives 400 to 4,000 reader pictures each day and pays up to 500 euros for the handful it uses. In 2006, it published a total of 1,500 reader photos and paid out 330,000 euros in fees.

Some were so important that other media outlets bought them. Bild shared the profits with photographers.

Its use of citizen journalists has drawn criticism in Germany, where memories of the Gestapo secret police or East Germany's Stasi make many wary of any type of surveillance.

Michael Konken, head of the German Society of Professional Journalists (DJV), said citizen journalists were devaluing the work of professionals and lowering standards.

''But it doesn't matter who wrote the story or took the picture,'' said Diekmann. ''What's decisive is the quality of the story or picture. I just don't see how UGC devalues journalism.

''It's the arrogance of people who don't want to make room for developments,'' he added, noting film of John F. Kennedy being assassinated was from an amateur.

Some critics have also worried the mainstream use of citizen journalists could foster peeping Toms, snoopers or Orwellian Big Brothers. Germany's Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said she feared the enthusiasm for users' shots encouraged paparazzi.

''There were attempts at first to push us into a certain tawdry corner,'' said Diekmann.

Citizen journalists usually have the right instincts, he said. Bild is proud of one reader who pulled a driver out of a truck crash before taking pictures when it caught fire.

''Citizen journalists generally respect standards of good taste.

We never get pictures taken through bedroom windows. People have a healthy sense of the boundaries. About 99 per cent of the photos that could cause problems are from professionals.'' BREAKING NEWS Diekmann, who has run the tabloid-style daily with about 12 million readers since 2001, said user-generated content is a boon: ''It's definitely making newspapers more attractive and more exciting. Before you'd never see a picture of a car on fire, but only a picture of a smouldering wreck after the fire was put out. Now, we're getting pictures of things as they happen.

''The quality of the reporting has also improved. We get more authentic information. When someone is at the scene of action they've got an unbeatable advantage over a journalist who has to first overcome time and distance.'' The crash of a Concorde jet in Paris in 2000, the Tsunami in Asia, Hurricane Katrina and London's 2005 bombings are among earlier news stories where mainstream news media have relied on user-generated content.

''The user-generated content phenomenon is the inevitable end product of a long development in technology,'' said Diekmann.

''With the cell phone cameras that almost everyone has, you get pictures that obliterate the old problems of time and distance.'' As a prominent German newspaper editor, he himself is sometimes ambushed by readers with digital cameras as he leaves home or a family outing.

''I have to live with that,'' he said. None of the pictures submitted yet was exciting enough to be published. But if he were foolish enough to get caught sunbathing in the nude, ''it would be my own fault.'' Reuters BDP RS0900