Colleague Dr Claire Wardle said times had since changed, with the BBC UGC hub of 23 journalists now based in the heart of the newsroom and dealing with 10-20,000 emails a day.

She added: "Now, every day on the hub there's a core team out on Flickr and Twitter looking for news stories, going to where the conversation is taking place rather than waiting for it to come to them. The hub has an awareness of how it (social media) works, and is trying to get the rest of the BBC to take it on board."

Examples of Old Media not giving much credibility to user generated content. That view has evolved at the BBC, at least, to rely on the hive mind as a filter for what is news.