One of the greatest advancements in the start of citizen journalism was with the creation of website “Independent Media Center”, or, more commonly known as, Indymedia or IMC. Founded on November 24th, 1999, it started because of the media coverage of the anti-WTO protests in Seattle, Washington. With corporations leading the media coverage of protests and violence across the world, Indymedia looked to change the way journalism worked. As it says on it’s homepage, it “is a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage. Indymedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth.” In this way, it worked on creating a more broad look into these types of stories, from people who either had strong opinions on what was happening, or people who might have witnessed the incidents themselves. This then worked as a way for people watching the news to have alternative sources besides just what corporations decided to show. There, anybody could be a journalist, and together with independent news organizations, both could work towards a fuller, perhaps more true, depiction of events.

Run on donations, what is special about Indymedia is that creates a new platform for connections between writers and readers. People who read articles online could work with moderators to pick what articles should appear on the website, and what should not. They could create either their own blogs, and post their own comments. It was social networking and the ability to spread news at the same time.

At the same time however, especially now, Indymedia is competing with many more websites with many more effective ways of doing the exact same thing. Websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr are all social networking sites that also provide the users with the ability to spread and share either their own news, or their own opinions on current events. What’s added too is that all three can notify you automatically when something pops up, and what’s more is that you can decide what kind of stuff is important enough for you to be notified about.

Also, many popular media coverage industries have taken in the ideas of sites like Indymedia by adding comment sections and changing the format so that stories that they thought could get the most reads were at the front of the site, rather than what was the most important. Anybody can then add to a story. Then there’s news stations like NPR (National public radio) that is also donation run, and seems to have lasted a lot longer than Indymedia with more creditability too. This, among other reasons, is why Indymedia has gone down in traffic just because of the upsurge of newer and more effective sites for the same means.