NBC News has made a bold move in online journalism, acquiring citizen journalism news site Stringwire for a yet undisclosed amount. The concept behind Stringwire is to allow people to live stream an event as it’s happening directly to the broadcaster, or in this case NBC News.

This essentially means that Twitter users who are eye witnesses to news stories can simply point their cameras at what’s going on and it’ll make its way live to the broadcast studio in order to broadcast directly on TV.  NBC Chief Digital Officer Vivian Schiller says that she will of course vet the videos before they make it in front of an audience.

Citizen journalism has threatened for some time now to take over the big media companies, and NBC’s move shows that these companies are both scared - and paying attention. It also benefits them to broadcast live from places where they haven’t been able to yet or can’t send reporters to cover.