Gusts of Popular Feeling has made its reputation by analyzing the Korean media’s attacks on foreign English teachers and countering them with actual statistics, facts, and quotes. Korean newspapers tend to employ cartoons when they have no photos to accompany articles. GoPF has put together a massive collection to visually give the history of the Korean media’s portrayal of foreign English teachers since 1984.
Here are some citizen headlines from the worldwide occupy movements:
Here are the latest headlines from worldwide “Occupy” movements.
The idea of completing an article on a deadline can often be intimidating for citizen journalists, especially when hard-to-get interviews are involved.
And there may be times when not all the information can be obtained by the time you need to complete your article. As a citizen journalist, you will need to learn the best way around this difficulty.
For starters, you will probably have to write a follow-up article when more information becomes available.
And you’ll have to be persistent – but not a pest – when you try to contact individuals who have the key information that you need.
There will be occasions when people simply refuse to be interviewed or to be available for an interview. That is their prerogative. No one is required to give you an interview.
But there are techniques you can use to try and get them to talk to you.
1) Always identify yourself and say that you’re working as a citizen journalist for whatever publication or outlet you are writing your story. That information gives you credibility and authenticity, and a reason for requesting an interview.
2) For those individuals who fail to return your phone call, try going to their office to see if you can catch them between meetings. Or, ask someone in the office if there is someone else you could talk to who could provide you with the needed information.
3) Try to understand the source’s position. Perhaps there is a good reason the person is not available to be interviewed. Perhaps the source has meeting after meeting and no time to respond to a phone call.
If that’s the case, let your sources know you will only take a minute of their time. Make sure you have done your research and are knowledgeable about the topic at hand so you won’t waste time asking basic questions.
In the end, it may be impossible to get the interview in the time you have allotted to complete your story. To let your readers know you tried to get all the answers to your questions, you should include a sentence, such as: “Repeated attempts to reach the city police chief were unsuccessful” or
“The mayor failed to return phone calls requesting clarification on the issue.”
Those sentences let your readers know that you realize the story may not be complete and that you tried your best to get answers to the questions they might have.
Susan Cormier is the co-author of the “Handbook for Citizen Journalists“.
Here are a few links to citizen sources for the occupy movements going on around the world. A lot of them come from the HuffPo, but that’s where a lot of folks send their pieces.
Here’s a cool idea for citizen journalists who cover local sports.
Sports Reporting Technologies says its SportSiteWare gives citizens a way to write about locals sports and make a business out of it.
Check it out at http://www.sports-reporting.net./. Maybe you can turn your love of sports into a great new business venture.
Susan Cormier is the co-author of the “Handbook for Citizen Journalists” (http://www.citizenjournalistnow.com/).
The Italian blog NOMFP contributed a video as evidence in the investigation undertaken by the Observer last week over allegations that saw defence minister Liam Fox involved in abuse of office.
Italian mainstream daily newspaper Il Corriere della Sera interviewed the curator of NOMFP, Filippo Sensi, who explained how the Guardian got in touch with him over a video published on the blog allegedly depicting Adam Werritty accompanying the defence secretary during a 2009 visit to the president of Sri Lanka.
Sensi highlighted how the video was found just through an ordinary YouTube search and therefore was not obtained through any kind of “espionage tactic”: the video was already in the public domain and what the blog actually did was simply to “connect” the information to the investigation launched by the Guardian.
The blog was quoted in the Observer’s article on the Fox case on Sunday, October 9th and it bears evidence to the increasing importance and integration of grassroots media with mainstream media.
I’ve begun to use the service www.tinyurl.com because you can shrink a long URL into something short and manageable. I’ve seen URL’s with over 170 characters go down to twenty-five or so!
I even had to turn my official website URL into a tiny URL because pasting some website’s log messed up the front page. Fortunately, I knew how to go down the middle of my McGraw-Hill website—Northeast Texas Virtual Library, formerly http://jdmeyer.pageout.net, and turn that Table of Contents into the new front of the academic website. http://tinyurl.com/4yp8j4w I also have a religious website that’s smaller and I don’t publicize a lot.
Then I had an idea. Write an article then put it in my McGraw-Hill Pageout website. Copy the lengthy URL of the document and paste it at tinyurl. Check to see if it works. Then take that URL of the new document at my McGraw-Hill Pageout site, and use it in articles for citizen journalism websites.
For example, I wrote a two-page table of contents entitled, “Chapter Sections Published Elsewhere,” http://tinyurl.com/3l6cpco an alternative style of sample chapter for my Developmental English/Writing textbook. These twenty chapter sections were published as articles at various websites, such as Associated Content, Connexions (of Rice University) and Lesson Plans Page. All but the final entry can be found in the 8th edition. The last one, “Veterans Interest Unit” shows illustrations from Flickr, the photo-sharing branch of yahoo.
I mentioned my textbook’s sample chapter with the tinyurl for an article I wrote for the local ABC affiliate’s citizen journalism about the East Texas State Fair. http://northwesttyler.kltv.com/news/events/70641-east-texas-state-fair-2011-view-toy-tent-workers-view
How is that relevant, anyone would ask? First of all, Sample Tuesday was a day when treats such as funnel cakes were selling for $2 instead of $6. So I wore an index card clipped to my shirt pocket with the advertisement, “Chapter Sections Published Elsewhere” and the tinyurl where you could read it. Eventually the card moved to my jeans pocket. Meanwhile I tended to my duties at the toy tent.
I wrote a short editorial (intended to be heartwarming) about my thoughts sitting in a tent full of cartoon balloon toys that I sent to Associated Content, now a branch of yahoo. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8919761/toy_tent_balloon_thoughts.html?cat=8 The link to the little article at the big website from the long article at the small website became a supporting detail and visa-versa. This time I felt that keeping the original long URL’s was preferable.
This self-marketing technique becomes quite portable. Now you can find this “Elsewhere” tinyurl at Facebook and Linked-In as I seek textbook publishers. Look at this procedure as an option to attaching documents, which is not always possible.
Steve Jobs has died at the age of 56. Think what you will about Apple’s former CEO, the company made serious strives to make citizen journalism more of a reality, even though Jobs himself felt that videos on YouTube were “amateur hour.” The iPhone and podcasting were innovations that allowed citizens to record events and broadcast them. Whole industries of devices followed the introduction of the iPhone that made citizen journalism an act you can do with just one small device. And iPad is just starting to show its potential in journalism.
I had just finished reading two books about the history of Apple and the two Steves. It’s fascinating stuff. But I am saddened that such an influential force is no longer with us.
The Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica launched a special section within their website dedicated to citizen journalism.
The initiative is part of a wider project, started in July 2011, aimed at investigating topics proposed by the newspaper’s audience: mafia issues, corruption in the political elites, the garbage scandal and healthcare disservices are only some of the themes covered by Repubblica so far.
The citizen journalism portal is a significant step toward the recongnition of the importance of this emergent field by the Italian mainstream media industry. A previous attempt was represented by the TV program Citizenreport aired on the state owned channel RAI 3 and was unfortunately discontinued after the first series.
The episodes can still be accessed via RAI tv but the program’s website, with all its highly interesting content, has been switched off.
Citizen journalists’ from Italy, or everyone who wishes to expose wrongdoings, share news and facts about the country, are invited to send their contributions to La Repubblica’s Visual Desk, visualdesk@kataweb.it.