Kate’s Corner

Week 6: Reporter’s Guide to Citizen Journalism

Posted on August 29th, 2007 by kmburb.
Categories: Uncategorized.

I have been so inspired by reading the past articles/lectures on OhmyNews that I have joined up to become a citizen journalist! Within a day of registering and submitting an article it was up on the main page, along with other stories from all over the world!!! At last check it had had 969 hits, so hopefully a few more people will read it before the day is out. I’m very excited!

I’m heading up to Sydney soon, on the same weekend that the APEC summit happens to be on. After joining OMNI and learning how to edit audio files in this week’s readings I am considering doing some “on the street” stories while I am there…will see how that goes.

This ties in neatly though with the comment Reuters chief, Tom Glocer, made in this week’s reading: “I believe the world will always need editing… the role of old media companies in the new-media age is that of content facilitator, tools provider and editor.” The editors at OhmyNews must receive copious amounts of material and they have to decide what is relevant, and what is of a good enough quality to use. The article I wrote is about the Pulp Mill being planned for Northern Tasmania. The fact that the article is on a very current issue no doubt helped it to be posted on the main page so quickly.

On another note, the following opinion from the reading fits in well with what I wrote about Facebook in some of my first posts: “Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, recently told the FT Digital Media and Broadcast conference that mainstream media should now focus its mind on connecting with the growing number of online communities and social networks.” There’s a whole youth network out there if people are willing to tap into it…

0 comments.