STOMP – Citizen journalism at it’s best!

We’ve heard about OhMyNews and their 80 odd thousand citizen journalists, but you ain’t seen nothing until you check out STOMP.

I had a look at this website after reading Stephen Quinn’s article about citizen journalism in Singapore and thought it would be pretty interesting. The site STOMP (Strait Times online mobile and print) is said to be the bridge between traditional newspapers and young readers. It attracts audiences by letting them submit their own stories (that are edited by professional journalists) along with photos, therefore the community can relate to the stories and feel like they are part of the news.

Here were some of the thrilling ‘must see stories’ I found.

WOMAN SHOUTS AT RESTAURANT STAFF IN DISPUTE OVER CHANGE AS 50 PEOPLE WATCH

SELFISH WOMAN DEPRIVES OTHERS OF SEAT WITH HER FEET AND GROCERIES

THIS BOY MUST BE HUNGRY: HE SLURPS DOWN CUP NOODLES IN CROWDED BUS

Quick! Stop the press! Ok, a bit harsh, I know. In all honesty, I most likely don’t understand the culture of people in Singapore and maybe these sorts of stories are what interest them most. I couldn’t however, see anything like this working successfully in Australia.

With some credit to the site, there are more serious news stories, including a special section for court reporting, and often there are newsworthy events that are captured first by citizens. They just seem a little difficult to find on the webpage, which is rather colourful and fun. It’s definitely easy to see where they are attracting the  younger readers.

It is an interesting concept and proving successful in Singapore, with up to six million viewers a month.

But for now, I think I’ll stick to the real news websites.

Orly? Breaking news stories on Twitter – the newest craze.

Twitter, Tweets, TweetDeck, Twitterfall, TweetBeep, BackTweets, Twibes…um, what?

This was more or less the original idea behind the latest social networking site, Twitter – ‘tweeting’ what you are doing in 140 characters or less.

After a few years however, Twitter now has hundreds of different uses by millions of different people.

You can follow everyone, from friends, to celebrities and organisations and it is becoming one the major tools in reporting. On my own Twitter, I follow ABC, SBS, 3AW, CNN and a number of newspapers. In fact, my Twitter feed is almost completely made up of the news headlines.

Not only are news providers using Twitter to tweet their own stories, the social networking site is also used to report on what celebrities and politicians are up to as well.

Of course, following hundreds of people can be a news overload. Using additional tools, your Twitter feed can be narrowed down to specific topics you are interested in at the time. Muck Rack is  a really cool site containing only Tweets from journalists from all around the world – a must read for any aspiring journo.

I must admit, all these additional tools are hard to get your head around. Even understanding the difference between a hash tag and ‘@’ symbol took me a while! Now I’ve got the hang of it, it’s actually really interesting to be able to search certain topics and read people’s basic ideas and opinions on them, without having to read anything essay-length.

Just don’t let it get you into trouble! It takes only a few seconds to post something and therefore, only a few seconds to think it over.

Stephanie Rice should know, she learnt the hard way.

This isn’t just a blog – it’s a new tool for reporting!

Forget a notebook and pen.

The list of new tools a journalist needs won’t even fit on one page.

When you combine online news, citizen journalism and social networking sites, all of a sudden we have citizens reporting on news through…

Journalists need to keep up-to-date with nearly all of these tools, especially Twitter, Facebook and a personal blog, in order to simply keep track of popular topics and stories for the day and even be the first to break news.

I mean, if Twittering 140 characters or less isn’t the fastest way to break a news story, I don’t know what is.

ABC News is just one of many media organisations ‘tweeting’ news stories.

Listen to how journalists are using these social media sites, but take careful note of their advice regarding what you can trust when it comes to reading ‘tweets’ and ‘posts’.

Basically, these tools are making news stories more easily accessible and up-to-date. Rather than waiting for the daily paper or the 6 o’clock news bulletin, the public can find out news updated to the minute.

Again however, we ask the question – will online news and social media be the death of the newspaper?

(I like the joke at the end – the newspaper is selling less, however by providing free news online, the media moguls aren’t doing too well there either!)

So next time I’m on Facebook or Twitter when I should be doing homework, maybe I’m not wasting my time after all…

…and don’t forget to follow me!

OhMyGosh! Citizen journalism on OhMyNews!

Citizen journalism is becoming more popular in the age of online news. In Korea, the newspaper website, OhMyNews (and OhMyNews International) is the first of it’s kind to accept, edit and publish news articles from it’s readers.

As a country who’s government once controlled and heavily restricted the media, it’s easy to see why citizens would jump at the chance to freely report their own stories.

And with 80,000 citizen journalists and up to 200 stories submitted each day, that is a lot of news.

OhMyNews creator, Oh Yeon-ho, who launched the site in 2002, came up with the site’s slogan, “Every citizen is a reporter”.  Below, Oh chats about why he decided to create the website.

I admit, it’s a little intimidating. OhMyNews has ranked as high as the sixth most influential news site in Korea – yet it’s almost completely run by CJs! Are these everyday people putting journalists to shame by showing them anyone can do their job?

Not really. OhMyNews employs around 60 real journalists, who report hard news, analysis, columns and editorials while CJs mostly stick to ‘soft’ news, like reviews and media criticism. This way, it’s easier for the site to avoid legal issues.

Up to a third of the articles are also rejected due to poor sentence structure, no news value or incorrect facts, proving although CJs numbers are rising, it is still the role of the trained journalist to provide quality to the world of news.

Which to me, is good news.

You’re a journalist? So am I! Oh..you are too? Everyone is thanks to audience generated content

It seems there’s no need for me to finish this class – I’m already a journalist!

That said, so is everyone else out there that knows how to blog, send an email, take a photo or record a video.

The chances are, when a big event happens out of the blue it may take a journalist with a camera a few minutes to get there, missing vital moments. There are usually however, plenty of everyday people right there with mobile phones pointed and ready. More often we are seeing photos making front page of the paper that weren’t taken by employed journalists – rather your average Joe on the street.

Here of the world’s biggest (and most disastrous) events that have been captured this way.

Even further than people contributing to news outlets with photos and videos, ‘citizen journalists’ are now writing and reporting on their own blogs and websites, such as Wikipedia and WordPress.

As Quinn writes however, these news stories are more often opinion pieces rather than reports. Citizen journalists, while sometimes being in the right place at the right time, are not as dedicated to the job as full time journalists, as well as not having the contacts or equipment to report ALL the news we require everyday. Rather, they write on the issues the day after they’ve hit the papers, TV, radio and news sites.

And it doesn’t mean it’s always good.

So for the moment, after three quality years of learning at Deakin, no average Joe will be stealing my job just yet!