Despite society’s perception of citizen-created and aggregated journalism as a relatively new phenomenon, many of the pioneering websites are already more than a decade old. A very successful example of these pioneer sites can be seen in Oh My News, a South Korean citizen journalism website that was founded by Oh Yeon Ho in February of 2000. The recipient of a Doctoral degree in Journalism from Regent University, Ho believed that “every citizen is a reporter” – so much so that he made this phrase the slogan of Oh My News.
Oh My News became a sudden success, profiting for the first time in 2003 – only 3 years after its’ founding. Many Koreans enjoyed the aspect of being able to report news from their own perspectives, and likewise enjoyed hearing word of important events from the viewpoints of average citizens. Anybody could contribute to the site; it gave people from all walks of life a voice for their opinions and a platform for displaying work. Due to popular demand, the English version of Oh My News debuted in May 2004, and a global version soon followed in April 2005. In October of 2007, Oh My News announced plans to open a “citizen journalism school” near Seoul that they hoped would educate students in the professions of journalism, photography, and photojournalism. Oh My News has also been instrumental in its’ participation in the Citizen Reporters’ Forums of 2006, 2007, and 2008.
The site is widely creditedto have contributed in determining the outcome of the 2002 South Korean Presidential election, so much so that President Roh Moo-Hyun granted his first interview to Oh My News.
One of the main reasons why Oh My News thrived was due to the fact that the website paid their citizen journalists for every published story – posts that made the “Top News” were given roughly $11. Although this was a great way to attract site visitors and content producers, a great deal of money was paid to the journalists, in turn reducing company profit. Another major issue with Oh My News was that many users did not trust the credibility or accuracy of the news being reported. Many print journalists were against Oh My News for this, claiming that the credibility of citizen-produced news was doubtful. This required the website to have fact checkers on the content which was being received. Producing yet another overhead fee reducing income for the website. Oh My News eventually had to stop paying their journalists and was eventually shut down due to financial issues. After the shut down Oh My News created a blog which runs very similar to the original website. Where Oh My News went wrong was their advertising. At one point they had two million viewers a day. Though 70% of their revenue came from advertising, Oh My News still saw financial ruin, losing $625,000 in the middle of 2008. July 2009 saw Oh My News release a public appeal for funding, to no avail.
The popularity of Oh My News has played a major role in the proliferation of citizen journalism websites that are active today such as Yahoo voices. This was a highly instrumental media aggregating website which helped conceive and popularize the citizen journalist. It is unfortunate that they ran into financial trouble because the website had the potential to be a top media website in the industry. Rather, they are known only as the now-defunct pioneers of citizen journalism.
By Pete Markel and Casey Medina