Week 5: OhmyNews in South Korea

Posted on August 14th, 2007 by kmburb.
Categories: Uncategorized.

How revelatory and public minded is Oh’s outlook, obvious through his comment that “OhmyNews wasn’t created just to make money, it was created to change society.” And change society is certainly has.

It has revolutionised world journalism and brought great attention to the notion and practice of citizen journalism. I was very inspired to hear how a simple idea Oh had as an undergraduate was eventually implemented to be a huge international success.

As far as online media goes, OhmyNews is far ahead of its competitors in the newspaper industry who have since extended into online news as well. Primarily this is because OhmyNews was designed specifically for the internet, and has been able to capitalise on the use of online advertising. OhmyNews also has a far greater resource of journalists (60,000 citizen reporters who submit about 200 stories a day) than printed-news companies do.

What I found very interesting, and a little sad, is how after the founders and citizen journalists of OhmyNews have managed to help shake up the tight hold the South Korean political system has traditionally had on the nation’s media, Korean journalists now face another issue: the pressure from advertisers. This is an issue western journalists have had to deal with for a long time already. It is a good thing that OhmyNews strives to maintain editorial integrity, free from the powerful influence of the advertisers.

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