The Internet has allowed the human civilization to break many barriers, whether that be language or geographical. Online forums and news sites have given us the privilege to connect and share information from community to community. With the ascension of the Internet, the invention of such sites skyrocketed.

An example of this “citizen journalism” is ohmynews.com. Ohmynews.com was founded in February 2000, by a South Korean journalist named Oh Yeon-ho, later to be known as a key player in the beginnings of citizen journalism.

If you want to learn more about Oh Yeon-ho, here is his biography.

Although ohmynews.com is well known for its back-and-forth journalism between users and reporters, it first started as a network similar to Yahoo! or CBC, strictly one direction in the way of news flow.  However, the implementation of this “participatory journalism” really set it apart from larger networks due to its innovation and dependence on the users to share information. At first, ohmynews.com was exclusively focused in South Korea, but soon an English version of ohmynews.com was launched in 2004. Once rid of its language barrier, this allowed the platform to stretch globally on a much wider scale.

The main idea behind the site, that anyone and everyone could be a journalist, was what really drove ohmynews.com. Any person that had access to a computer could contribute to ohmynews.com, making it an innovative new tool to read up on news that was part of a much bigger picture, a global news community.  Topics such as politics, society and culture, international affairs, education, the economy, technology, sports, and entertainment are all featured on ohmynews.com, providing to a broad range of interests.

Reddit is a similar and very popular platform in which users can post news and stories, which are moderated through other users and mediators, except in Reddit’s case, the site is more of a internet meme-factory.

Ohmynews.com allowed users to be more active when reading the news.  Suddenly the user could be inclined to comment, post, and share, sometimes overwhelming the staff posts.  The site has since been updated, and now features a recent comments bar where one can view the recent comments posted to different stories and follow and see what’s trending (like Twitter) and follow the most popular posts.

The new site also features a blog-like structure consistent with some of most popular sites today. The new blog layout is much more simple and easy to archive, considering how much content has built up over the last couple of years. This layout is much more efficient and less complicated than a forum-style site.

Nevertheless, ohmynews.com was the igniting spark that allowed citizen journalism to spread, in an easy and simple manner. It let regular people become journalists overnight and allowed the connection between reporter and reader to become dually significant, something that has shaped our society and our generation.

Sarah Kirkwood (31441116)

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

Indymedia was the revolutionary source for causing upraise of independent voices. Was founded on November 24, 1999 in Seattle when they reported on the WTO protests in Seattle, Washington. Creators wanted to create a website where they can post accurate news stories that were different than mainstream media sources.  This lead to the creation of independent media website of Indymeida. Focuses on violence, protesters and riots demonstrators, gives an authentic voice.

Focuses on grassroots and non-corporate news coverage. Grassroots refers to the work of non-professional journalists. The website is funded purely by donations. Independent coverage gives room for opinion and a wider range of news coverage. New stories are submitted to the website, all articles that they find very compelling are displayed on the front page and they rest are available on different pages and side bars. The side bars gives you options to look at media in different countries.

There are more than 150 media networks worldwide. 60 in the United States and 15 in Italy and are now published in many languages. The variety of languages includes, English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Russia, Arabic and more, this creates a form of globalization.

When the website first started during the battle of Seattle there were five million hits a day. More recently there has been a decrease due to blogs and other media sources where the topics and be discussed on specific topics. Now there is about two million hits a day on a busy day.

Indymedia impacted and started citizen journalism. Journalists started to feel like they had agency over what they say and wrote. This gave independent writers the option of posting their work anywhere with full opinion. Also Indymedia has also had an impact on activism. The gathering of a variety of news sources for Indymedia led to global access to knowledge. Known that was provided was up to date; some are even updated minute-by-minute and reliable. This independent news gives a different view than mainstream media and causes extra awareness and transnational activism.

Indymeida claims to be unbiased. They still do background checks and see if the story is reliable. Comparatively to Drudge admits to being openly bias.

Live IMC coverage radio is available on their website and accessed from the home page. Also gives the opions of entering your emails for updates that are sent directly to your personal email. Even if you would like to post your own story, there is a link for that on their homepage that leads you to a screen that allows you to type up and submit what you would like. At their “About” link they describe themselves as “network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings.”

Other Independent media websites that promote citizen journalism are RINF, a daily source of under published news. Slashdot, are user submitted news. and OhmyNews, that promotes that  “Every Citizen is a Reporter.”

By Kaitlyn Wamsteeker

As many may know The Drudge report, a blog put together by Matt Drudge is known for its’ simple layout, clever headlines and maybe most famously for exposing Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

A little bit about Monica: The Lewinsky Scandal

After graduating from Lewis and Clark college in Oregon, Lewinsky landed an internship in the White House in the mid 90s. While working there, she became friends with Linda Tripp, also an employee of the White House. Confiding in Linda, Monica told her of an affair she was having- with Bill Clinton! Though Linda was a friend of Monica’s, she felt it necessary to expose this inappropriate relationship. Linda leaked the story…but surprisingly the first source to hear of the affair decided not to report it. Why? I presume they did not want to be the ones speaking out against the president. Who does?

If you are like me and want to find out more about the Scandal watch this interview with Monica Lewinsky. It provides an interesting look at the scandal from her point of view.               Click here for the link to the interview. Additionally this here is another video from Bill Clinton’s point of view.

Then came along Matt Drudge: The founder of the Drudge Report

Mr. Drudge the founder of the Drudge Report (founded in 1997) decided the affair was something the American public needed to hear, so in 1999 he made the news public and put himself on the map of internet sights to be sure to visit. On the site he links articles from other news sites, posts his own comments about current events and gives advice.

In the beginning, Mr. Drudge presented many conservative views backed by other conservatives so recently when he reported about Gingridge many conservatives were upset.

For Matt Drudge it wasn’t about who he wrote about but what he wrote about. He wants to get the news out there for people to read and if this means he is viewed as more of libertarian than that is fine.

DID YOU KNOW: Matt Drudge runs the blog all by himself!!

It is not a flashy site, but Mr. Drudge uses flashy headings (made up by him) to attract people to the links. He certainly has made a name for himself, with 10,186,259,484 visitors just in IN PAST YEAR. 

Overview: What makes the Drudge Report special

Matt Drudge created the Drudge Report with the goal of providing news to the people. He constantly pushes the limit on what can and can’t be exposed to the public. But most importantly he has learned to pick out the news that people want to know. He is an effective aggregator of news who knows his audience well. Who knew a citizen journalist/reporter with a self run blog would become so influential in the news reporting world.

One last note: How does he make money?

During today’s presentation a note was brought up about how Mr. Drudge makes his money. I presume it is the adds, which in fact do exist on the website. Free standing as well as popup adds appear on the page, though not as many as some other websites display.

MATT DRUDGE created a place where he could decide what news was important and what was not. He is a good example of how one person can make affect the way so many people view and interpret  the news.

Here is an interview with Matt Drudge himself. Interview. 

The Lewinsky Scandal

November 15th, 1995: Miss Monica Lewinsky, a 23 year-old intern, and President Bill Clinton have their first affair of nine at the White House. The streak of affairs would end a bit less than two years later in March 1997, but the scandal regarding the sexual content of the affair was only beginning.

After it became clear to the public that there was something between Lewinsky and Clinton, she was transferred to an office in the Pentagon in order to dilute rumors about the two. However, rumors still circulated and Mr. Clinton was asked to confront them directly in an interview on live TV. In this interview, he explicitly denied such affairs. But when a trusted friend of Lewinsky’s, Linda Trapp, came forward with evidence that he could not deny, Clinton was compelled to restate his testimony and thus confessed to having a sexual affair with Lewinsky.

The Drudge Report

A year later, a man named Matthew Drudge made a daring journalistic move. He was the proud owner of a news aggregation site that he titled The Drudge Report. The site itself was nothing special, just a simple layout with a standard font and large headlines. The blog was largely unknown – until he made the decision to blog about the Lewinsky scandal. He was the first news outlet to do so, so in exploiting the President’s sexual history with a young woman he actually made history himself. He didn’t see it as a large accomplishment at first, but he soon realized that what he had done would change journalism permanently. In posting what would later become one of the most well known blog posts in history, Drudge set the standard for all online articles to come.

My Experience/Opinion

After watching Adam and Martin’s presentation, McKenna and I became very interested in the details of the Lewinsky scandal itself. We went on YouTube and watched the most well known interview of her on 20/20 in order to acquire more information. After watching a few parts of it, we learned that there was a lot more to the case than exploited in The Drudge Report. Lewinsky not only seemed to have a difficult past, but it was revealed that Clinton was not her first or only affair – she previously had one with a married man while she was a senior in high school.

Through watching her on 20/20, I began to connect her story to that of John F Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe during his presidency in 1962. I remember reading an article a while ago about her thoughts on the affair and how upset she was at being portrayed as a sexual object. I have every reason to believe that Monroe was a good person at heart and didn’t mean any harm by her actions, but for some reason I could not feel the same sympathy for Monica Lewinsky. It occurred to me at one point that perhaps she just wanted to be loved and was looking for the type of attention that her father never gave her, but I couldn’t see her side of the story very well through her laughing and smiling in the interview. I do see many similarities between her and Monroe in terms of the situation itself, however I feel that Lewinsky’s intentions were not as innocent as Monroe’s seemed to be.

I do respect Drudge’s decision to put the information regarding the Lewinsky/Clinton affair out there. It was an important step for journalism and an even bigger one for the US.

The Independent Media Centre, coined Indymedia or IMC, is an online citizen journalism platform devoted publishing grassroots and non-corporate news coverage that is of interest. It was founded on November 1999 as a means of providing up to date information to an online audience about what was what was occurring at Seattle’s WTO anti-globalization protests. According to their homepage, Indymedia is comprised of several independent news organizations and journalists all working towards “the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth” from a different standpoint. But from the start what set Indymedia apart from all other news sources of the time was that it provided citizens with the opportunity to pick and choose which articles should and should not appear on the site. The content is freely decided upon by the participant as well as the moderators who regulate the site. As Skyler and Maya pointed out in the video they made, the objective of Indymedia was brought about by the need for people to have the option of hearing from alternative news sources, not just from the mainstream news. This was deemed independent media and was the driving force behind the concept of citizen journalism and sprung into action hundreds of Indymedia outlets which are popping up worldwide.

Funded solely by donations, Indymedia has had an extensive impact on journalism. After the Indymedia coverage of the Seattle protests was hugely popular, people ran with this idea of having equal say and being able to criticize this precedent of objectivity that exists today in corporate media. It has encouraged independent journalists to set up their own citizen journalism networks. Additionally, it has facilitated global activism movements and provides a platform for transnational activism outreach. Most importantly, indymedia has raised awareness (minus all the sensationalizing that mainstream media throws in there) on many important issues. By January 2006, there were over 150 Indymedia websites globally distributing print, audio, photo and video media in virtually any language. Take a look at this Indymedia website based in the United Kingdom.

Despite its major contributions to the field of journalism, since its founding in 1999, Indymedia is losing the fight with its competitors. In the digital age, with the huge advancements that are being made in new media today with blogs, podcasts and social networking Indymedia is struggling to keep up to date. They are left to question whether there are better websites out there that offer a participatory aspect while still providing a platform for users to speak out against mainstream media. And the answer is Yes! Take a look at a couple independent news sources like Democracy Now!, Truthout and Freepress which seem to be more relevant to the times than Indymedia is. For example, Democracy Now is an award –winning news program that is broadcast on some television networks and radio stations as well as on the internet with its podcasts being the most popular on the web. It provides access, much like Indymedia, to alternate views from the perspectives of independent journalists, citizens, grassroots leaders and activists from all over the world. As well, in the age of Twitter and Facebook, it will become increasingly more difficult for Indymedia to stay relevant since people often turn to social media before anything else.

What I’ve learned from this presentation is that Indymedia was a major player the creation of participatory journalism. If it wasn’t for Indymedia and allowing their users to have a say in the articles, websites based on the same idea like The Drudge Report and Ohmynews couldn’t have existed.

Founded on November 24^th, 1999, IndyMedia (also known as the Independent Media Center) launched for the first time. This website would allow independent media organizations and journalists to cover different news stories from around the world. IndyMedia eventually expanded to 150 different outlets worldwide in multiple languages as well.

IndyMedia originated in 1999 during the anti-WTO protests in Seattle, Washington. During that time, corporations led the media coverage of the protests and monitored what was shown to the public so images of violence were exposed. However, this did not display the actual issues of the protest. This would confuse bystanders watching the protest on the news, and therefore they needed a source to discover what the protests were about. As a result, IndyMedia was created as a different voice for the people.

From a journalism aspect, the development of IndyMedia started citizen journalism where the public could comment and share news stories easily. Through commenting, people could see the opinions of other people and then form their own independent opinion. Due to this new addition to news sites, more people began to sign up for blogs and share their point of view to the world.

Commenting and sharing news articles with peers and the public has developed into something bigger in these past few years. Especially on Facebook, we are now able to share our own opinions on people’s status, which are initially their original thoughts. Also, when someone shares a link or a photo, we are able to comment on that as well, thus contributing our personal ideas and views.

IndyMedia also influenced many movements for activism. Since people were now able to provide their opinions, many people also agreed with that and wanted change in the world for the topics at hand. Most articles posted on IndyMedia are about protests or stories that are not generally known about, or given priority to on other news sites. Due to this, the articles are posted only every few months. For example, the last article that was published was on October 10^th, 2011 and the previous one was posted on April 2^nd, 2011. This is only for global issues though – the outlets for IndyMedia, such as the San Francisco outlet, has posts or updates at least twice every week.

It is interesting to see how social media has changed the way people interact with each other on a political scale. Commenting and sharing has evolved into blogging and contributing your own point of view to the public, which ultimately creates new ideas and changes for everyone to contemplate. It’ll be intriguing to see how the site will continue to thrive in the next few years.

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” – Bill Clinton

Without doubt, the Lewinsky Scandal was one of the most controversial as well as discussed scandals in recent U.S. political history. But how did such a private matter become public?

Obviously Miss Lewinsky had an urge to talk about her affair with a married man, so she told to one Miss Linda Tripp about it without saying who this married man was. Miss Tripp showed great interest in the matter, even more so once she found out who exactly Miss Lewinsky’s affair was, and as we all know now he was the best man that happened to America between the warmongering Bushes. Miss Tripp, who since then gained an infamous high profile tried to leak the story to widely respected political magazine Newsweek, although the magazine’s editors decided NOT to report on the story due to the enormous impact the revealing of the story would have, thus forsaking one of the biggest stories of the decade. But eventually the affair went public. Driving force behind the revealing was Mr. Matt Drudge, an independent journalist,  who got word of the story and wasted no time to create his website, the Drudge Report to tell this very sensational story, which consequently led to Bill Clintons very famous TV appearance first rejecting those allegations, but eventually, equally famous, coming clean and telling the world that he indeed did have an inappropriate affair.

Since then Mr. Drudge’s website, which is simple in style and layout, but features catchy headlines and images as well as multiple updates a day, has been hugely popular among political interested citizens. Mr. Drudge is set to push the limits of what can be reported to new levels, as he is interested in reporting the truth, no matter what. He disproved allegations of being a biased conservative journalist with by featuring reports about GOP’s presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s recent affair. Matt Drudge is one of the most influential persons in citizen journalism today as well as living proof that one man can make a tremendous difference in a nation’s political process. In addition to that it is no secret that Mr. Drudge is opinionated in his reporting, as he is in charge of what he uploads on his website and what he doesn’t.

To add a little correction, to the apart from this little flaw, excellent presentation of Mr. Berson and Mr. Stillman (I am so very sorry Adam and Martin), the Drudge Report includes advertisement on the website. Actually it is very eye-catching right on top of the site as well as a couple of ads if one scrolls down the site. But that is just a minor error and I don’t think this influences your performance review, at least I sincerely hope so.

FYI, the popularity of the Drudge Report can be seen in these statistics (Source: intermarkets.net):

Traffic statistics

•             13.3 million monthly unique visitors

•             1.9 million daily unique visitors (weekday)

•             1 million daily unique visitors (weekend day)

•             797 million monthly page views

•             2.6 billion monthly ad impressions

Indymedia is a a composite of many organizations and journalists working together to bring democratic, sans corporate influence stories to the public. Founded in November of 1999, it’s a donation run site to which articles from writers all over the world was featured. Though all articles and blog entires submitted are on the page, a select few would be put up on the front as headlines. The public could recommend articles and blogs to others on the site and to others outside on discussion forums, through comments and blogs. The site has over 150 outlets, mostly in the States and Europe and articles can be found in a verity of languages such as English, Hebrew, Russian and Chinese. The site was revolutionary in because of the fact people could so easily share news they thought was relevant and discuss it with others. It was also an important step to the creation of citizen journalism as literally anyone could submit their articles and opinions to the site. Due to the accessibility of information this site was very important to to the awareness of many global and local issues. It provided information on why protests, events, issues, etc. were happening, not only focussing on the violence at certain events like the mainstream media. It created a platform for transnational activism. The main issues with the site had been the questions of the reliability of stories. Though most articles were fact checked, they could still be biased – and the front page with its selective stories, was also deemed subsequently biased. regardless the site gets about 2 million views a day and is still an important source of news for many people.

However, with the development of social media, blogs and online news, the site is becoming obsolete in many ways. It now has to compete with Twitter, which is far more effective and is becoming used for activism as much as Indymedia once was. One example is the AnonNews feed – the Twitter of Anonymous, who are leading the fight for internet freedom (despite mixed reviews on their tactics). It provides instant coverage of important events in legislation and other related topics. The feed is uncensored, provides links, images and it can all be retweeted to followers – much like the recommend button on Indymedia. There are also discussions happening on the comments of many of the posts. Another plus of Twitter is accessibility, it’s been built to function on all mobile electronics so location has become irrelevant to people getting the news at all times. Blogs in general are also taking a bite out of Indy, as they are now highly accessible to anyone, anywhere. They are also written and moderated by their owners – meaning they provide individual perspectives and are uncensored. The readers are there because they want to read the person’s opinions, not because it’s the featured opinion on a page. Sites like Tumblr are also becoming a tool in activism as people can reblog things they find interesting or relevant and add their own commentary. Petitions are often circulated though all of these sites, and because they are also the places we use for our regular social lives – ideas are transmitted faster and more effectively.

Social media and blogs won’t be the end of Indymedia – it still provides us with checked, relevant coverage of many topics. However, it’s traffic will reduce unless more and more adjustments for the other platforms are made.

K. A. Zazubovits

Modern society has evolved such that communication has become globalized and ultimately becoming an effective platform for discussion.  The presence of a geographical barrier is no longer problematic, and information can now be passed almost instantaneously.  This is evidenced through the increase in Internet users, particularly in aspects of news media and journalism.

The news website called “OhmyNews” was founded in Korea during February 2000 by a man named Oh Yeon Ho.  This site is said to be the founder of bidirectional journalism; indicating that citizens and reporters alike are able to engage in topics of conversation revolving around the news, rather than allowing citizens to simply take information in.  A concept that can be defined as participatory journalism.  However this was not always the case, as OhmyNews was simply started as a unidirectional news website in Korea, much like CBC News in Canada.  In comparison to CBC News, one is able to see that both websites are locations for reporting news, without having the aspect of discussion.  The original website of OhmyNews was very informative and covered a range of topics including: politics, society, culture, international affairs, the economy, information technology, sports, and entertainment.  This peaked the interest of many readers, and allowed the website to reach two million viewers per day.  However even with the vast amount of readers the site accumulated, the company still experienced a net loss of $625 000 in mid 2008.

This promoted Oh Yeon Ho to archive OhmyNews as a news website, and re open it in Sept 2010 as an interactive blog, allocating more of the power towards the public.  This initiated a test run of direct democracy in the world of media.  As a concept of interaction, this gave the public the opportunity to voice their opinions and display their work.  This was greatly improved the status of the company and encouraged more people to read the news and participate.  Convergent thinking began to occur online, which has now become an invaluable asset within the modern world, predominantly in news media.  As passive roles are being left behind, more online news sites are starting to catch onto this trend.  An example of this would be The Washington Post Social Reader.  This social reader is also strongly continuing on this new found path of interactive media, increasing the level of social interdependence within society, quite alike the interactive blog of OhmyNews.

Promoting this trend, will radically increase the change of communicational direction around the world.  This will allow for an up to date news report, not only in content, but in presentation and format as well.  Freedom of speech is no longer becoming simply about “saying your opinion”, but about creating a change in opinions as well.  Allowing people of all ages to comment, empowers people of the younger generation to insert their opinion, despite the fact that they are considered “not politically experienced.”  This opens up the platform for discussion to a broader set of readers and encourages the voices of tomorrow to speak up on subjects of importance to them.  The journey of news media is an interesting one to follow, and will only increase over time as generations evolve.

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” – Dr. Seuss

Courtney Lee