Collaborative Journalism

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship on June 27, 2005

Technology Review is taking a look on the Collaborative Journalism projects out there:

"This new form of journalism differs from its more popular blogging cousin in that, unlike blogging, which eschews (in many cases) the more rigorous elements of journalism, collaborative media efforts tap into a particular community to make sure a story is as complete as possible.

In some cases, such as the Korean site OhMyNews, CCJ stories are reported by a team of volunteer journalists; in others, such as Wiki News, a group does serial fact-checking and vetting on an existing piece, calling attention to errors or omissions.

There's the local news approach, offered by such sites as Backfence.com and
Gillmor's new project, where the community focuses on stories happening
in a specific geographical area. For privately owned Backfence.com,
which launched on May 3, it's two cities in Virginia. For Bayosphere,
it will be the Bay Area in California.

There's the broader-focus approach, practiced by South Korea-based Oh My News and WikiNews, which cover a wide array of topics, issues, and locales.

And, finally, there are the community-based
media-vetting efforts, something sites such as Newstrust will offer
when it officially launches. Newstrustwill use specialized software that it's building to help people "select
the news they can trust," says co-founder Fabrice Florin. Florin says
his service will help individuals uncover the biases found in many
media stories and discover the factual omissions, but he won't specify
exactly what Newstrust will offer, in part, because it's still being
built. He estimates the service will launch in anywhere from three to
nine months."


I must say I'm a big believer in citizen journalism as well. Creative Weblogging is already providing some good sources of information in niches but there is no way to compete with news publisher like CNN or Foxnews in main stream news right now. What we are doing here is conquering niches not the mainstream. OhMyNews is still the only real wonderful (and profitable=sustainable) initiative. However I'm pretty sure that things will eventually work out there are hundreds of thousands locals out there proficient in English, armed with digital video cams and experienced with blogging. Combining this wonderful resource with afact checking team that syndicates these news and repackages them could be a great opportunity don't you think?