A small terrestrial (i.e., the kind that uses normal tower-based transmission) broadcast television station, KFTY, Channel 50 in Santa Rosa, California, has fired its entire news staff and is going to rely on viewer-submitted material for news.  Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle calls ita nationally watched experiment in local television coverage. Over the next few months, the station's management plans to ask people in the community -- its independent filmmakers, its college students and professors, its civic leaders and others -- to provide programming for the station. Will they be paid? That's being worked out. Who will cover the harder-edged stories? Some will be culled from local newspaper and TV online sites, [station executive] Spendlove said, and "other sources" that are still being discussed. User-generated content has been a feature of the internet since  blogging began. Joel Hyatt and Al Gore's company, Current TV already features...(Read Full Post)