We’ve already written about Reddit’s new “live reporting” feature, which gives users the ability to live-blog a breaking news event or post updates about an ongoing story like the revolution in Ukraine — a feature that I’ve argued could make a significant contribution to crowdsourced journalism. But I wanted to find out more about the motivation behind it, so I asked Reddit general manager Erik Martin why the site decided to add the feature, and what he sees as the potential value for both citizen journalists as well as society in general.

As with so many other things that have emerged from the Reddit community over the years, such as its popular “Ask Me Anything” celebrity interviews or the “Explain It Like I’m Five” feature, Martin said the live-update platform was essentially invented by users, who hacked the site’s traditional post format in order to post multiple updates about…