PressEthic

I watched MSNBC last night – please don’t ask why; I have no preference when it comes to broadcast news – and I observed the same advertisement that struck me when I watched the Hurricane Katrina coverage a few weeks back. The network asked viewers to become “citizen journalists” by sending in emails and pictures if they see something that they think is newsworthy.

Don’t worry, I don’t believe that citizen journalists are going to take over the world, but I think it is an interesting topic and one that is deserving of discussion. The popularity of citizen journalists' is increasing. This is demonstrated by a South Korean based website called “OhmyNews.”

According to an article on CNN.com by Kristie Lu Stout, “OhmyNews” has over 50 reporters and editors along with 36,000 citizen journalists. The benefit of having this many people reporting around South Korea is apparent, and the popularity of the website shows how much the public enjoys the eyewitness accounts and perspectives of the citizen journalists.

In a September 18th article, Vanessa Hua of the San Francisco Chronicle reported:

OhmyNews is much more than a soapbox, though. It is a cross between an online news site and a sophisticated blog. Koreans flock to it. The site gets 1.7 million to 2 million page views each day, a number that shot up to 25 million during the December 2002 presidential election.

Professor Penenberg noted this week in class that the number of actual visitors to a website is impossible to track, yet the number of page views that “OhmyNews” gets is worthy of attention.

Stout quoted Oh Yeon Ho, the founder and CEO of the site, when he said:

Our slogan is 'every citizen is a reporter.' We've created a new kind of journalism. We call it 21st-century journalism, two-way journalism. So the readers are no longer passive. They are very active and participate to say what they want to say.

Although “OhmyNews” receives a lot of positive feedback, it has its critics as well - and for obvious reasons. In Stout's article, a media critic blasts the site for its lack of balance and for its subjective reporting.

Stout gave Ho a chance to respond to these allegations:

They (citizen reporters) don't want to be objective. They don't pretend to be objective. What's more important for them is to make it clear their viewpoint and (to) advocate to a certain group of people.

It will be interesting to see how citizen journalists affect the way we get news and how much of a part of the mainstream media they will become.

If you’re interested, you can check out the English version of “OhmyNews” here. Also, check out the “Independent Media Center” here.