I'm writing a Centerpiece article for Poynter Online, and I'm seeking insight and examples from Tidbits readers.

Yesterday I wrote about how people at airports and elsewhere were publishing their own field reports of the unfolding impact of the foiled UK terror plot.

Obviously, there's a lot of potential for news organizations and their affiliated sites to quickly leverage contributed content during breaking news. The question is, how can you do that efficiently and effectively?

It seems to me that setting up and publicizing communication systems for gathering contributed content could help significantly. In my experience, citizen journalists are eager and able to contribute valuable coverage, and they especially love to have that coverage published by news organizations. But they need to know how to send their content to your newsroom, no matter where they are. More importantly, they must be ready to send you news whenever it breaks, from whatever communication device they have handy.

For instance, say one of your readers snaps an on-the-spot cell phone photo of a train derailment. She might be able to easily post it immediately to Flickr, or to her weblog, from her cell phone. But shouldn't it also be fast and simple for her to submit her pictures directly to your newsroom or site? Shouldn't she have your "Send us your photo" number programmed into her cell phone? Shouldn't she have your "Breaking news" address programmed into her Blackberry pager?

...Come to think of it, shouldn't all of your most engaged and energetic readers have that contact information programmed into their mobile devices? And shouldn't you have a reliable system in place for making the best use of their contributions -- especially during major breaking stories?

Poynter's Chip Scanlan noted yesterday in a comment to my posting that BBC News has just such a system set up for their Have Your Say pages. That particular Have Your Say page includes the following guidance and instructions:

"You can send stills or mobile phone video to rpics@bbc.co.uk or +44 (0)7725 100 100. At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws. You can also text your comments to: 07624 800 100."

Plus, BBC News offers detailed guidance on contributing photos online or via mobile devices.

I'm seeking examples: Which other news organizations have set up good systems for accepting, reviewing, and using contributed content for breaking news? How do they work? What would you recommend for this kind of system? Please comment below.