Cybersurf

The concept of citizens’ journalism has always been controversial at the very least. The notion that new technology allows just about anybody to become a reporter – is very disturbing to some people – especially to fellow journalists.

However, we have seen in the last year or so – some of the most impressive footage of the South east Asia tsunami was taken by amateurs; some of the most horrifying pictures taken after the London bombings were taken by private individuals using camera phones and blog reporting is often so much more interesting than the real things.

But the tsunami videos and the London bombings were opportunistic ocassions – where the poor picture quality undermines any claim to being professional journalism. Blog reportage is very patchy – a few blogs are really excellent, but most are nothing more than innacurate, unverified ramblings.

And therein lies the problem – it is very difficult – and sometime impossible, to tell the cream from the crud. Simply because blogs are not required to go through any editorial process – no one checks the facts, the spelling, the grammar or the validity of these reports.

Does this mean that you can never trust any type of citizen journalism? On the contrary – some of it is very reliable and in Korea, an online citizens’ publication probably changed the course of govenrment.

The news site is called ohmynews.com – that is oh as in O.H. M.Y.N.E.W.S. dot com – ohmynews dot com. The original was in Korean but the English version has been going successfully for a few years already.

The founder, Oh Yeon Ho, heads up an organisation that is part blog and part professional news agency. It receives about 70% of its copy from some thirty eight thousand “citizen reporters”. More important to some – it has a more than viable business model – in 2004 it reportedly made a profit of about four hundred thousand US dollars – most of it from advertising.

Political observers say "Ohmynews" influenced the election of outsider president Roh Moo-Hyun in February 2003 -- and it was no coincidence that Roh granted his first post-election interview to the site.

Great success story – and normally when there is a successful business model there are immitators – Wikipedia is trying a similar model and here in sunny South Africa (P) we have reporter dot co dot za.

The reporter dot co dot za project sponsored by the Johnnic Media group, has apparently only just been launched because there is a devastating lack of content – for the meantime. I am quite certain that it will do well – it has good backing – the site is technically sound and user friendly – but above all – the site will pay for stories – not a huge amount but I think you’re supposed to be a journalist for the love of it – not that my bank manager will settle my overdraft for love, or money – he wants blood.

And that wraps up the citizens journalism edition of Cybersurf – if you missed any of the URLs – or web addresses please click along to www.cybersurf.blogspot.com one more time – www.cybersurf.blogspot.com thanks for listening and remember to keeeep on surfing.

// posted by Steven Lang @ 8:30 am