Winter 2007 Citizen and Netizen Journalism Volume 15 No. 1 challenge to the cathedral and the church as the Editorial: conveyor of authoritative ideas. “Will This Kill That?” Today a similar scenario is being envisioned, debated and tested in practice. “Will,” as Michael "The archdeacon contemplated the gigantic Hauben put it, “the new online forms of discourse cathedral for a time in silence, then he sighed and dethrone the professional news media?” stretched out his right hand towards the printed (http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x13) book lying open on his table and his left hand to- We offer this issue of the Amateur Computerist wards Notre-Dame, and he looked sadly from the to share some of this emerging debate and story book to the church: `Alas,' he said, `this will kill with our readers. Throughout the main stream that'....the book of stone, so solid and durable, news media industry, the impact of the internet is would give way to the book of paper, which was being taken seriously. Every major and most minor more solid and durable still." newspapers, and every major radio and TV news The French novelist, Victor Hugo, in his Notre program has a website and many are considering or Dame de Paris was commenting on the emergence experimenting with how to introduce increased over 500 years ago of the printed book and its reader input and citizen reporting. These efforts are commercially driven. The readership of main Table of Contents stream media is declining and the web is increas- ingly becoming the main source of advertising rev- Editorial: “Will This Kill That?”. Page 1 enue for newspaper companies. Welcome to Korea and OhmyNews ....... Page 2 But also there is a challenge to the authority Media War in Denmark. Page 3 and centrality of main stream media. That Citizen Journalists and the New ‘News’.. Page 6 challenge is coming from efforts at non-commer- Cit-J and Its Place in Journalism . Page 8 cial or at least non-profit and other forms of citizen Reporting From Nepal . Page 11 journalism where staff and citizen reporters con- Citizen Journalism Brought to Germany . Page 12 tribute as part of their roles as citizens of their soci- Citizen Reporting in Brazil . Page 13 eties or citizens of the net, netizens, Here lies the Netizens in Japan Take Step Forward . Page 14 controversy. Exporting Citizen Journalism . Page 16 Samuel Freedman, a New York Times journal- Netizens Critical to Citizen Journalism . Page 17 ist and professor at the Columbia University School Cit J Not About ‘Amateurs’ or ‘Pros’ . Page 18 of Journalism sees citizen journalism as “one of the Where Do You Head, Cit J?. Page 21 trendiest terms of the moment . part of a larger OMN Changed My Perspective. Page 23 attempt to degrade, even disenfranchise journalism Researching the ‘My’ in OhmyNews. Page 25 as practiced by trained professionals.” Who would Cit J: Holding Power to Account .. Page 25 he asks “treat an amateur as equally credible as a Time to Think....................... Page 27 professional?”. (http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/ Great Expectations. Page 28 2006/03/30/publiceye/entry1458655.shtml. See On Being a Citizen Journalist . Page 29 also “Citizen Journalists and the New ‘News,’” Citizen Journalism in Indonesia. Page 30 page 6 in this issue) Page 1 His fellow Columbia Journalism School pro- voice heard and a chance to influence the daily fessor Nicholas Lemann voices his agreement in news agenda. the New Yorker (“Amateur Hour: Journalism with- There is a sense that a new journalism is out Journalists,” Aug 8, 2006). Lemann argues that, needed because the main stream media has failed. “the content of most citizen journalism will be fa- Ronda Hauben, a featured writer in Ohmynews and miliar to anyone who has ever read a church or researcher of the social impact of the internet, sees community newsletter.” (http://www.newyorker Ohmynews as part of a vision of a 21st century .com/fact/content/articles/060807fa_fact1. See also press that broadens what is considered news and “Cit-J and Its Place in Journalism,” page 8 in this who is encouraged to produce it. issue) “Interesting times we live in,” writes Larson, Defenders of participatory or citizen journal- “a media revolution is unfolding right before our ism do not agree that citizen reporters or journalists eyes.” Twenty-first century media will be different. are amateurs, only reporting community or but who is going to hold the power in the end? personal news. They point out that online newspa- Which will be dominant, market driven journalism pers like Ohmynews in South Korea attract serious or citizen journalism? citizen reporting and try to serve as society’s demo- cratic watchdog, a role which main stream media has more and more abandoned. [Editor's Note: Mr. Oh Yeon-ho founded the online Oh Yeon-ho founded Ohmynews in Feb 2000 Korean-language newspaper Ohmynews in to encourage “every citizen to be a reporter” and to February 2000. Today, Ohmynews is a major player make available in Korea a spectrum of news and in the South Korean news media industry, ranking views not contained in the conservative main among the top 10 most influential newspapers stream media. From the very beginning Ohmynews there. Ohmynews pioneered centering a newspaper Korean language edition mixed staff journalist and on articles submitted by what it calls citizen report- citizen reports and gave all articles professional ers mixed with some articles by staff journalists. In editing. According to Oh, “only those citizen re- 2004, Ohmynews launched an English-language porters who are passionately committed to social edition called Ohmynews International (OMNI) change and reporting make our project possible.” (http://english.ohmynews.com/) which has attracted (See, “Welcome to Korea and Ohmynews,” the more than 1200 registered citizen journalist from at bottom of the next column.) least 91 countries. Articles in OMNI often show up Similarly, Erik Larson who started the citizen in online searches made with engines like Google website flix.dk in Denmark in 2003 sees journalism news. From July 14 to 17, 2006 OMNI held its sec- fulfilling a higher purpose needed by society than ond annual Citizen Reporters Forum. The follow- main stream media is currently serving. He writes ing are Mr. Oh's remarks opening that Forum.] that, “without critical high quality commercially independent journalism, society loses its headlights Welcome to Korea and and moves into the future like passengers on a bus riding at night at high speed with its lights turned OhmyNews off.” (See, “Media War in Denmark,” page 3 in this OhmyNews founder and CEO issue) Oh Yeon-ho welcomes participants of Larson writes he has deep respect for journal- the 2nd Int'l Citizen Reporters' Forum ism as a profession, but he agrees with John McManus who wrote the book, Market-Driven by Oh Yeon-ho Journalism: Let the Citizen Beware. Larson writes, “‘market driven’ journalism slowly but steadily Two of the most prominent buzzwords in re- undermines the work conditions for journalists who cent years have been Web 2.0 and UCC (user-cre- seriously want to pursue the task of being ‘democ- ated content). Underlying both concepts is the be- racy’s watchdogs.’” Larson has adopted Oh’s com- lief that collective participation will lead to an opti- bination of professional editing and citizen report- mum solution or conclusion. In other words, deci- ing giving every citizen a chance to get her or his Page 2 sions will best be made when there is truly mass cussion. I know of no other international forum that participation through the Internet. is dedicated entirely to the unique topic of citizen While giant corporations rush to find a way of journalism. I hope this forum will be evaluated in commercializing these concepts, citizen journalism, the future as a springboard for citizen journalism to I believe, represents the most developed model for advance to the next stage. Web 2.0 and UCC. It depends not only on the par- I'd like to remind our readers that you will be ticipation of the masses but on the participation of able to join the forum by accessing our site, those who think critically and creatively. english.ohmynews.com. We are planning to web- Writing a news story requires a good deal of cast the forum live for the full length of the event. time and consideration. It is much more difficult, Information and values still flow today from for example, than leaving a comment or posting a top to bottom, from West to East, from North to blog entry. Though we are an open platform acces- South. It is time now to push back and re-channel sible to everyone, not everyone can write a news the great flow back and forth, to and fro, from citi- story. Only those citizen reporters who are passion- zen to global citizen. ately committed to social change and reporting Thank you. make our project possible. The main reason that © 2006 Ohmynews citizen journalism has not grown and spread more rapidly is the difficult task of finding and organiz- ing these passionate citizen reporters in waiting. [Editor’s Note: In 2003, Erik Larsen and two fel- Once citizen journalism takes root in society, low Danish journalists started a citizen journalism however, it cannot be easily uprooted. For it exists website. For no special reason they called it Flix at that point not only on a physical plane but as a (www.flix.dk). Three years later Flix has gained a definitive concept in the minds of the people. I reputation in Denmark as a substantial alternative hope Ohmynews stands as living proof and example source of news and opinion.