OhmyNews International

The AP Stylebook has been regarded as the “journalist’s bible” and a staple for professional news-reporting for years.  Now citizen journalists have their own bible too.

Yahoo will debut its style guide for the web, “The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World” on July 6. According to TechCrunch:

“The company targets professional journalists, bloggers, technical writers, editors but also web developers, designers, small- and medium-size businesses, advertising and PR agencies and … newspapers folks.”

It is available in print for $21.99, or online for $14.84. Subjects range from proper punctuation and grammar to writing style for mobile devices. It appears to be an excellent addition to citizen journalists’ toolbox, and a boost to their credibility in the world of professional journalism.

Music junkies unite! The Huffington Post is calling on anyone and everyone to add content on the summer music scene for The NYC Beat.

Report the effects of the oil spill as you see it via text message, e-mail, Twitter, android phone, iPhone or web form. Students at Tulane University are using the Ushahidi open source software to make a live tracking-system with a map, graphs and news feed.

This map utilizes public testimony to visualize the impact of the BP oil spill over time and geography. By using information that comes from participants we will be able to track, document and make public the effects of the BP oil spill. By making all information public we will facilitate transparency, accountability and effectiveness in the oil spill response and clean up.

Rachel McAthy writes for Journalism.co.uk on the industry’s attitude toward the iPhone’s video capabilities.

I think, therefore I am.
I talk, therefore I am a citizen.
I write, therefore I am a journalist.

These hypotheses seem black and white to me. They are comfortable, and I like that. Citizen journalism is not this way, and I am learning to embrace its shades of gray. I have come to view my discomfort as a good thing.

Journalism is the who, what, where, when, how and why of being human. It means being able to ask questions and challenge our status quo in hopes of betterment. To quote Henry Luce, I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world.

I have spent five years of my life in journalism school and have certificates that say so.  The AP Stylebook has been memorized; Tarbell, Murrow and Osgood idolized. I love journalism with my whole heart, and have lived in enough broom closets to prove it.

So please do not tell me that the woman next to me at the car wash can slap on the title “citizen journalist” and do exactly what I do.

Wait a minute.

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Earlier this week About.com profiled the woman behind Tehran Bureau, a web site that garnered attention for its coverage of the 2009 protests in Iran. Founder Kelly Golnoush Niknejad noted the value of broadband access and speed (something I discussed on Monday) as important tools for the coverage in Iran.

“But the government has done a very effective job of squelching the press,” she adds. “They’ve cracked down on the protesters, executed people, rounded up journalists. There are far fewer opportunities to document what’s happening. And the Internet speed in Iran has been reduced greatly so you can’t upload videos or pictures.”

Sourced by Blogging Innovation:

Americans are so used to freedom of speech that it’s easy to forget what the concept launched in the USA. 200 years ago anybody who could access a printing press, of any size, could produce a newspaper. That [w]as revolutionary. Citizen journalism was the norm, and there were literally thousands of newspapers. That situation remained very true well into the 1900s. Eventually acquisitions led to consolidation and a dramatic reduction in the number of newspapers.

The HBO documentary, a poignant reminder of citizen journalism in the Iranian protests, debuts this summer.

The NY Times today addresses the closure of a citizen journalism site in Japan with a nod to our own OhmyNews. The article offers keen observations about the role of the state, the citizen and the medium, as well as the history of all three, for news’ future.

JanJan News closed three months ago, citing recent years’ financial morass as the final blow to its weak advertising revenue.

Reporter Martin Fackler notes:

JanJan was the last of four online newspapers offering reader-generated articles that were started with great fanfare here, but they have all closed or had to scale back their operations in the past two years.

He specifically references the OhmyNews experiment that launched in Japan in 2006, only to close about 18 months later. He also draws a comparison between the Korean and Japanese media environments, highlighting differences in culture and government.
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As an American living in South Korea, I’m learning the need, the need for speed.

The Koreans’ favorite phrase – bali, bali! – means “faster, faster!” and reflects its culture of high-speed growth. And it is not relegated to technology. The emphasis placed on efficiency can be seen at the dinner table, on the soccer field, and in classrooms.

It is the land of the future for those of us tangled in ethernet cords. Here are a few things I’ve noticed since my move to Korea:

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