Following is a Q&A with Jean K. Min, communications director of OhmyNews International, the trail-blazing citizen journalism publication in Seoul, South Korea. The exchange — with questions put to him by myself and Matthew Lee of the Center for Citizen Media — took place in January 2007. [Read more…] about OhmyNews: ‘Every citizen can be a reporter’
Matt Foremski, pictured below, tells how he did some citizen sleuthing to discover the true identity of YouTube’s Lonelygirl15. She was not a home-schooled 16-year-old girl named Bree but rather an actress named Jessica Rose, who had recently moved from New Zealand to Burbank, Calif. I caught up with Foremski in an AIM chat to learn the details of how he broke one of the biggest Internet stories of 2006. [Read more…] about Citizen sleuthing: The unmasking of Lonelygirl15
Given the rise of citizens’ media and the burgeoning grassroots publishing movement, author-technologist J.D. Lasica — with the encouragement of Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle — convened a Citizens Media Summit at the Internet Archive headquarters in San Francisco on May 14, 2005. The goal was to begin a conversation, make connections and set down a rough roadmap for how to nurture grassroots media in the years ahead.
Thirty-six people turned out for the strategy session on May 14, 2005, beginning at the Rob Hill campground in the Presidio before we retreated to the warmth of the Archive’s offices.
We were surprised by the robust turnout. People came not just from the Bay Area but from as far away as Boston, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis and Vancouver. Attending were: [Read more…] about Summary of 2005 Citizens Media Summit
This column — my last for AJR — appeared in the July-August 1999 issue of The American Journalism Review.
Where will online journalism be in five or 10 years? In the hands of more and more regular folks, who may not even think of themselves as journalists.
The Internet has long held out the ideal of Everyman as publisher — ordinary citizens who take back journalism from the professional class. As the Web matures, we’re starting to see a flourishing of community journalism, a phenomenon that has both distant roots and a promising future.
“The news consumer is turning into a news provider,” says Walter Bender, associate director of the MIT Media Lab. “It’s not that these news consumers will compete with the New York Times, but the consumer becomes part of the process of telling stories in a way that enriches the public discourse.” [Read more…] about Citizens as budding reporters and editors
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