OhmyNews International

An explosion occurred in Portland, Oregon, when a woman was cleaning a pan after making tofu.

Blast tied to tofu pan puzzles Portland officials (Newsvine)

Hey, it’s art…

This video is making the rounds, picked up by Russia Today, of Oakland protesters being rushed by police during a Thanksgiving meal.

Here are more Occupy-related headlines:

Occupy Lisbon is spreading the message (CNN iReport)

Deadline looms for Occupy Philly to dismantle camp (Newsvine)

Occupy Wall St. Press Conference: Why did NYC destroy library books? (CNN iReport)

Three Op-Eds Offer Differing Views of Occupy Movement (CNN iReport)

Thanksgiving At Occupy Philly (CNN iReport)

Occupy LA deadline comes, many say they won’t go (Newsvine)

Occupy in pictures (current.com)

Occupy Claremont is small but effective (Digital Journal News)

Retired Police Captain Still Occupying Wall Street (CNN iReport)

“Si, se puede”: Occupy Phoenix Protesters Persist in César Chávez Plaza (CNN iReport)

Missing SD student turns up at NY Occupy protest (Newsvine)

Occupy Salt Lake City – Really Really Free Market (CNN iReport)

Gay porn shoot at Occupy Oakland camp (Digital Journal News)

Occupy NOLA Camp (CNN iReport)

How One Man’s Lie became the SHOCKING truth about Occupy (Allvoices)

Regardless of who you are or the writing experience you have, you need an editor or at least a friend to help you proof your articles or copy.

It is impossible to catch your own errors, typos, etc. You know what you think you typed, so you read it that way. But is that what shows up on the computer screen in front of you?

The word “your” is a perfect example. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read – and typed – the word “you” when it should have been “your.” Another mistake I’ve made recently is typing concentration instead of concentrating.

I also used the word “memorial” instead of “monument” in a draft of a recent article. Luckily, another person who was familiar with the topic proofed the article and caught my blunder.

Mistakes happen to the best of us. I’ve been reporting and writing for decades, and I still make them. That’s why an editor – or just a friend – is so important to help catch errors.

Ask a friend to take a look at what you’ve written. It may take an extra few minutes, but it may save you some embarrassment.

If a friend – or editor – isn’t available, here are few tips on how to best edit your own copy.

Slow down and take your time – a concept that is sometimes hard to implement when faced with a deadline or time constraint.

Read what you’ve written several times after you have typed it. The first edit should focus on grammar and misspelled or misused words. To best catch those mistakes and typos, read your copy out loud.

The second edit can focus on whether the copy makes sense. How many times have you read an article or an email and wondered what the author really meant to say?

If time allows, give some distance between your readings, like an hour or two. That gives you a chance to walk away, think about something else and then come back more refreshed to look at your writing and catch possible errors.

Finally, don’t forget to check and double-check phone numbers, website addresses and the spelling of people’s names. Those are mistakes you really don’t want to make.

Susan Cormier is the co-author of the “Handbook for Citizen Journalists” (http://www.citizenjournalistnow.com/).

Occupy San Francisco (Nov. 16, 2011) Credit: Eric Wagner (cc)

The crackdowns in New York and Oakland–have they dissipated the occupy movements, is it a temporary setback, or will it make them more aggressive?

City Room: Protesters Find Their Belongings in ‘Chaos’ (Global Reporter)

Calif. Occupy protests focus on cuts to education (Newsvine)

Eviction of Liberty Plaza/Zuccotti Park, NYC (CNN iReport)

Occupy Crackdown in Full Swing (Allvoices)

Occupy Calgary tent catches fire, two injured (Digital Journal News)

Occupy Wall Street: Day 61, Day 1 Without Tents (NowPublic)

OWS Sep-Nov (CNN iReport)

Occupy the Highway: The March from Zucotti Square to Washington D.C. (CNN iReport)

City Room: Religious Groups Helping Evicted Protesters (Global Reporter)

Six Arrested in Occupy Norfolk Movement (CNN iReport)

Jesse Jackson Shows Support for Occupy Cincinnati (CNN iReport)

Boston judge temporarily blocks Occupy removal (Newsvine)

Call Goes Out to Occupy Movement to Shut Down for Winter (CNN iReport)

84 year old woman pepper sprayed @ Occupy Seattle (CNN iReport)

How the mighty have fallen (CNN iReport)

Aftermath of the Eviction of #OWS in Zuccotti Park on Nov. 15th (CNN iReport)

Top #OWS Tweets: Victory in Boston; heartbreak in Seattle (Current)

Top #OWS Tweets: Victory in Boston; heartbreak in Seattle (Current)

Occupy Wall Street: Zuccotti Park Reclaimed (CNN iReport)

There is a reason that magazines have an option to subscribe. People aren’t always going to venture out every time there’s a new issue. So why not have a subscription option on your website?

At OMNI, we gather news from a lot of citizen journalism websites. Yet we can only do this efficiently through subscriptions. There are not enough hours in a workday to go to every single CJ site one by one. That’s true of readers too. They don’t have time to pull up every site they like to read. They likely have already comfied up to their own portal sites, so don’t think that they’ll suddenly make your site their homepage.

It’s one of the basics of any site with dynamic content. If your content changes, like a blog, you MUST have a subscription option. Yet when I go out to scour for new CJ sites, HALF of them won’t let me subscribe. And even more of them have the subscription option buried at the bottom.

If your site is serious about gaining readership you need to cover the basics. Make a subscription feed. Google’s Feedburner is excellent for this. It makes it simple. When you have made your feed, make a prominent subscribe chicklet near the top of your pages. I find it funny that some sites have prominent “follow me” buttons for Facebook and Twitter, but they don’t have the basic button to actually follow their sites!

Get a button. Put it on your site. We at OMNI have a nice little button at the top of ours. Not flamboyant. Just do it because we want to read your content.

Here are the latest headline from the global occupy movements:

FREE FLU SHOTS FOR THE 99% AT ZUCCOTTI PARK (CNN iReport)

Occupy Portland protesters defy ‘eviction order’ [VIDEOS] (Allvoices)

Egypt: Homosexuals to Occupy Tahrir on January 1 (Global Voices in English)

Occupy Salt Lake City – Shut Down “Country Men Lend Me Your Ears” (CNN iReport)

The End of the OWS movement in Lexington, Kentucky (CNN iReport)

Occupy Ohio U (CNN iReport)

New generation of music central to protest (Newsvine)

Occupy the War on Drugs (CNN iReport)

Police say 2 officers cut by Occupy SF protesters (Newsvine)

Occupy Everett (CNN iReport)

APEC and occupy movement protests in the middle of Waikiki (CNN iReport)

Call to occupy Iowa caucuses draws little interest (Newsvine)

Death at Utah’s Pioneer Park; Police Order Occupy SLC out of Two Tent Camps (Allvoices)

Police may break up Occupy Wall Street camps after deaths (Digital Journal News)

Rabbi Michael Lerner: “Praying With Our Feet at Occupy Oakland” (CNN iReport)

Here are the latest citizen journalism headlines for the worldwide Occupy movements:

Occupy Cal Berkeley Protest Draws Thousands, As Two Years Of Occupation Come Home (Huffington Post)

Occupy Athens Georgia (CNN iReport)

Occupy Cal: Berkeley Protesters Beaten by Police (Video) (NowPublic)

Occupy Lisbon: “Occupy Yourself!” 11.11.11 (CNN iReport)

Occupy Springfield, IL | Mic Check To The Illinois Legislature (CNN iReport)

Cops Shoot A Cameraman In Occupy Oakland (CNN iReport)

Governor seeks to drop Occupy Nashville charges (Newsvine)

Occupy Wall Street: Van Jones on the movement’s success rallying around specific issues (Current)

Occupy Harvard (CNN iReport)

Occupy Nola 99er found dead in tent (CNN iReport)

OWS Begins March on Washington D.C. (CNN iReport)

Occupy Chicago Protesters Get Job Apps Dumped on Their Heads (NowPublic)

Occupy Berlin – New Tent City Arises in Berlin (CNN iReport)

Occupy movement debates how to police its fringe (Newsvine)

The Northern Italian region of Liguria is currently being hit by flashfloods that are bringing the region’s main city of Genoa to its knees.

The citizen journalism website Youreporter is showing numerous videos of the different parts of the city as the tragic events are still unfolding. Facebook users are also uploading news and material on their pages thus contributing to spread information in the country through unofficial channels. While the authorities seem to have lost control of the unpredictable situation social media are inviting people to leave the city.

The mainstream media outlet Corriere della Sera is also remediating footage from Youreporter.

The emergency in Genoa continues.

Tom Grubisich’s blog titled “How is Citizen Journalism Playing Out Today?” takes a look at a variety of news outlets and their use or non-use of citizen journalists.

Comments ranged from “we generate over 65 percent of our content from volunteers” to “you can’t depend on citizen journalists.”

In the end, Grubisich concludes that “citizen journalism is in a new place — with less emphasis on ‘citizen’ and more on ‘journalism’.’’

Read the entire blog and see the various opinions at: http://streetfightmag.com/2011/10/27/how-is-citizen-journalism-playing-out-today/.

Susan Cormier is the co-author of the “Handbook for Citizen Journalists” (www.citizenjournalistnow.com).