Citizen journalism : Challenge or opportunity? When South Korean journalist, Oh Yeon-ho Iaunched Ohmynews.com in February 2000, nobody believed that an online newspaper driven by ‘citizen joumnalists’ would last for more than a few months. However, not only did it survive braving the challenge of the infamous dot-com bust but eventually emerged as one of the most successful New Media projects employing more than 60,000 citizen reporters contributing in Korean, Japanese and English languages from across the globe, Most of the content used by Ohmynews.com is generated, edited and published by appropriately paid Internet surfers who take pride in reporting the events in their neighborhoods before anyone else does. Today, the online newspaper whose motto is ‘Every Citizen is a Reporter’ is no less successful than the Balendu Dadhich Contrary to the general belief, however, citizen journalism is not limited to news websites or news portals and must be seen in a wider perspective. It is citizen journalism if you take a picture of a policeman taking bribe from an erring motorist and post it on Flickr. The smooching video of two unsuspecting film stars shot by an anonymous customer using a mobile phone camera at a Mumbai restaurant and subsequently ‘broadcast on a major news channel will also be termed. citizen journalism, even if it generates a debate on the blatant intrusion of individual privacy. Eyewitness accounts Similarly, war accounts written by the famous Baghdad - based blogger ‘Salam Pax’ during the Iraq war and reporting by citizens during the Mumbai frontline Korean newspapers and television channels in terms of popularity and effectiveness. It is even profitable. In the years since Ohmynews.com happened, citizen journalism has come along way to become one of the hottest buzzwords in the business of News. What exactly is citizen journalism? Citizen journalism takes place when ordinary citizens, without any kind of formal training in journalism, use modem-day technologies to generate and contribute their own newsworthy content to new media platforms for global distribution through Internet wAfeen 66 Ninian ‘SBR 2008floods, the tsunami tragedy, the London train bombings, the Hurricane Catrina, and the Virginia Tech massacre are glorious examples of successful and effective citizen journalism, People who were witness to these events came forward with their eyewitness accounts, photographs and videos to provide first - hand and precise information regarding these incidents, Such content was otherwise out of bounds for traditional forms of journalism. As Mark Glaser puts it, “the audience knows more collectively than the reporter alone.” Anyone wanting to take a plunge in citizen journalism would just need some workable knowledge of Internet and a capability to express his/her views clearly. The Internet has a large number of platforms available to enthusiasts of participatory journalism, Online media expert and thought leader, Steve Outing has identified 11 layers of citizen journalism from just writing comments in websites or blogs to Wiki journalism where readers are editors themselves. Blogging, open source reporting and media sharing are other popular methods of citizen journalism apart from full - fledged websites and portals hosting user - generated content in unedited, edited or enhanced forms. Also known as grassroots journalism, crowd- sourcing, unfiltered journalism, indymedia, community news, we media, open source journalism, folk journalism, personal media and bottom-up journalism, Citizen journalism is attracting attention of individual web entrepreneurs as well as Internet companies and media houses for various reasons. Yet another success story After the huge success of the communication, information and e-commerce models, Internet is clearly passing through another revolutionary phase of its life in the form of social networking and social media. In this age of YouTube, Flickr, Orkut and Linkedin, user generated content is what every web publisher has got interested in and what makes sound business sense. NOP KLEEN. IOO? CELINE After the huge success of the communication, information and \ e-commerce models, Internet is s @ clearly passing through another ™ revolutionary phase of its life in the form of social networking and social media. INNNRRAE SSN ALAIN Citizen journalism is almost free, supplements and enriches original content on offer; immensely expands the organisation’ s area of presence and reach; enables coverage of real issues affecting local populations that go largely unreported by mainstream media; generates groups of new, loyal readers of grassroots content due to its local nature; strengthens the proverbial bond between publishers and readers by opening an informal channel of communication between them and sometimes also gives a social identity to the news organizations concerned. Truc, user - generated content has its limitations especially in terms of quality, substance, accuracy and credibility but organizations are learning to deal with the issue by channelising such content through layers of experienced editors and presenters as benefits far outweigh constraints, Even after making payments to its army of citizen contributors, Ohmynews.com made handsome profits of USS 400,000 in 2004, mostly from advertising. The online newspaper, originally launched as a Korean language venture, was eventually expanded to offer English and Japanese versions as well. Ohmynews.com is not the only success story. Nowpublic.com, Newassignment.net, Wikinews, Baristanet.com, Newsvine.com and Ourmedia.org are writing their own success stories in the cyberspace, BlufftonToday.com, a citizen journalism driven sien ioten | 67 ‘ke 2008(clecasts best viewer contributions received through the I-Report service. The BBC hosts iCan, a website designed to help people across the UK to take action on issues that matter to them. News agency, AP is in alliance with NowPublic.com to take advantage of news, photos and video contributed by NowPublic.com’s 60,000 registered citizen journalists. The initiative is designed to bring citizen content into AP newsgathering, and to explore ways to involve NowPublic’s on-the-ground network of news contributors in AP’s website, utilizes content submitted by citizen reporters in its 32-page print edition distributed free in the small town of Bluffton, South Carolina. More than 60% of the city’s population is regular reader of the print edition and at least one person in half the city's households is registered with the web version. Rising popularity of the venture is also reflected in its healthy financial figures, BostonNOW is running copy generated by local bloggers. This copy appears as 150-200 word blurbs in the print edition, and full-length online, The Daily Camera, Boulder; Colorado; The Dallas Morning Times, Texas; The Bakersfield Californian; Rocky Mountain News, Denever, Colorado; and Marathi daily Sakal too use citizen content submissions in their print editions, It is not without reason that international television news channel of CNN's repute could not resist the temptation of testing waters in this space The Time Warner group company introduced ‘I- Report’, a section which allows people from around the world to contribute text, images and videos of breaking news stories. Success of the initiative inspired other television channels such as ABC (i-Caught), Fox (uReport) and MSNBC (FirstPerson) to come out with similar projects. A CNN programme ‘News To Me wAfeen 68 Fs ‘RSI 2008, breaking news coverage. If you remember Reuters and Yahoo had come together in December 2006 to launch an online news contribution system “You Witness News” allowing aspiring citizen journalists to submit news, photos and video. Reuters selects, edits and distributes such material to Yahoo News and other news outlets and pays to the contributing journalists for content used by the agency's subscribers. The Indian Scene Citizen journalism is making waves even in India Apart from various blog hosting services offered by Internet and media organizations, full-fledged projects are being launched to harness the potential of user- generated content, CNN-IBN and IBN 7 television channels have made significant progress in this regard, The channels telecasts TV programmes where viewer contributions get due importance. A few years ago, when one of the worst floods in its history sent normal life out of gear in Mumbai, ordinary citizens flooded the CNN-IBN news channel and its website Ibnlive.com with photos, videos and writes-up giving vivid details of the devastation and anarchy. This made the channel’s coverage of Mumbai floods an instant hit among the viewers. Power of citizen journalism was evident during the Tsunami and Mumbai terror attacks as wellBuoyed by the response, CNN-IBN and IBN 7 decided to make it a permanent feature of its programming. Now the group has tied up with Idea cellular to allow Zdea’s customers to report news items through SMS, MMS or phone, which will be verified by the editorial team at the editorial team at CNN - IBN and aired in the form of Breaking News. You can probably sense a business-model taking place in the process. NDTV too has encouraged its viewers to send SMS messages on unresolved and long standing criminal cases. In the wake of the campaign, some unresolved criminal cases have been reopened by the courts. A South India based television channel, Amrita TV has telecast 2 90 - episode series based on citizen journalism. Instablogs.com, a full-fledged news portal that pays its contributors for published content is getting popular among the Indian blogging community. New Delhi based Merinews.com, which claims to be India’s first citizen journalism based news portal and an official honorary at the Webby Awards has also tasted reasonable success in terms of user participation and advertising revenues. Bhopal-based Mynews.in and Merikhabar.com (Hindi) arc other such initiatives. Streetanchor.com too has made a promising start. As more and more such projects pass through different phases of planning, development and consolidation, citizen journalism in India is headed for an exciting future. Challenge or opportunity? Citizen journalism is clearly thriving. But does it have enough fodder to emerge as an independent powerhouse of content and pose a serious challenge to traditional media? Do professional journalists and mainstream media houses need to be worried by the monstrous growth of blogging and user generated content? Should it be seen as a passing phase of information technology's development? Or does it signify an important developmental phase for the profession of journalism itself, which will eventually alter the way media operates? At the hindsight, things may appear just normal but dig a little deeper and you will find conventional journalism and citizen journalism standing at the opposite ends of a change process. You will find that a significant shilt of readership is taking place in the background from offline to online, from conventional to new, from content to technology-enabled content, from depth to speed and from individual to collective, Is it an indication of the days to come? In America, the Audit Bureau of Circulation reported an average decline of 3% in the overall circulation of American paid newspapers during April O1 to September 30, 2007, compared with the year before. Notable among the newspapers are New York Times (4.5 %e decline), New York Post (5.2%), Newsday (5.6%) and Washington Post (3.2%). On the other hand, average monthly unique audience figures for newspaper Web sites grew by more than 3.6 million in 2007, signifying a record year for the industry and an increase of more than six percent over 2006 figures, According to Technorati State of the Blogosphere Report (April 2007), 120,000 weblogs (blogs) are being created worldwide each day. We, in India, live under different politico-social circumstances and trends of the west generally take a few years in reaching here. However, the findings of Indian Readership Survey 2007 (Round 2) too, albeit oes SSO At the hindsight, things ‘may appear just normal but dig a little deeper and you will @ find conventional journalism 6 and citizen journalism standing at the opposite ends of a change process. - Sess oo EE sien iain | __69 ‘ake 2008surprisingly, support the ‘shift of readership’ theory. Compared with Round 1 figures, majority of top ten Indian newspapers (in all languages) face a declining readership. Dainik Jagran, the number one Indian newspaper, too has fallen by over 6% along with Malayala Manorama, Hindustan Times, Amar Ujala, Thanthi and Eenadw Now look at the online space. According to the Internet in India [I Cube] Report 2007 published jointly by the Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB International, the number of intemet users in India in the ever user or claimed user category touched 46 million in September 2007 from 32.2 million in September 2006, A shakeup was overdue ‘Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis, co-authors of “We Media’, a key report on citizen journalism say, “The venerable profession of journalism finds itself at a rare moment in history where, for the first time, its hegemony as gatekeeper of the news is threatened by not just new technology and competitors but, potentially, by the audience it serves. Armed with easy- to-use Web publishing tools, always-on connections and increasingly powerful mobile devices, the online audience has the means to become an active participant in the creation and dissemination of news and information.” Atatime when Internet emerged as a catalyst of transparency, innovation, expression and togetherness, a shakeup in the orthodox, stagnant forms of conventional media was perhaps a logical step forward. Citizen journalism brought some fresh air to the business of news. Unlike traditional media, it is not passive; itis not one-sided communication, Itis truly democratic, accessible and interactive. It is free, fair and fast. There has been a power shift from producers to users. Similarly, information is not under exclusive control of journalists anymore, Ordinary citizens’ right of expression has, for the first time, found means to execute it too. 70 ‘SBR 2008 wAfeen ‘ian But it may still not be the end of road for the conventional media, If the American experiments ate any indication, digital journalism may not pose a serious long-term threat to conventional media but might actually facilitate its transformation and expansion, The ABC report, while pointing to a serious downward trend in circulation, also underlines the rising popularity of online versions of the same publications. Web versions are gradually plugging the holes created in the print circulations and ‘ad’ revenues. This is indicative of a hybrid model where print, electronic and web live in harmony and supplement each other, Scene in India is no different. Times of India, CN- IBN, NDTV, Jagran, Nai Dunia and Hindustan Times may be conventional media companies but they have adapted very well with the changing times. As a result, their web enterprise is extensive and successful If conventional media houses are able to develop hybrid models where depth and maturity of mainstream journalism can be combined with power and reach of citizen journalism, they could come up with a winning combination. MSNBC, CNN, BBC, CNN-IBN, Ohmynews, BBC, Reuters, AP and other consumers of user-generated content are probably moving in the right direction. The writer is Group Editor, Prabhasakshi.com