OhmyNews’ Version of Citizen Journalism

I had the opportunity to join a website where it says it was practicing Citizen Journalism. I didn’t understand what the term meant. Later, I discovered that professional journalists were working together with unschooled journalists which rather intrigued me. Then I happened to read of Steve Outing’s write-up of different levels of Citizen Journalism. As feedback to that Poynter Institute article, I read that the site where I joined claimed to be practicing a mix of two levels. Now, I had a name for what we were doing: Citizen Journalism.

I wrote an opinion piece in that site endorsing Citizen Journalism all the way. It was able to garner 53 recommends (minus 11 decommends) and 86 comments. The story stood there as top story for more than a week. As we discussed the CJ we were doing, I slowly believed that we were not doing it right - or faithfully, in terms of social responsibility.

First off, I tried to defend our site by saying CJ had many faces after I saw a screenshot of our writers’ site in OhmyNews printed side by side the photograph of George Bush. Using Altavista Bable Fish to translate the Korean language used, I got the impression that we were being critiqued. For what, I tried to decipher.

Not by the criticisms of OhmyNews on that site but by what slowly unfolded, eventually, I lost steam in my efforts to contribute my share. Initially, I got inspired by Indian writers doing their share as writers, just by photographs with social significance.

I found many news items there needing editing. Sure, it’s democracy at work if they refuse to be edited. One could also block another member from touching one’s work as in commenting or editing, although one could recommend or decommend one’s story by pressing on the arrows going up or down.

What disconcerted me is the practice of scoring. Sure, it can urge you to work harder although there can be no money involved, but the effect is strongly psychological. You just would not allow your name to be down there in the dumps. For a while, it was challenging, but eventually, one would find out there’s no logic in how the scores come about. Also, they tend to veer away from content. News is about content – not about scores.

But here come news links. Majority of supposed Citizen Journalists were merely pasting on news links from other sources. Yes, paste on news links! The second thing they mostly did was recommend news links of others, and presto! They got scores to their name.

Steve Outing said OhMyNews is popularly known for Citizen Journalism. I tried to scan the web and I found out the South Koreans were able to influence the Presidential elections in 2001 on account of Citizen Journalism espoused by OhMyNews.

Yes, there has to be success to measure in implementing Citizen Journalism.

Reading OhMyNews’ version of CJ makes me think it is the purist kind worth emulating.

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=8&no=292915&rel_no=1