As getting busy with piles of work at my desk in the capital-based office, I also wait if there is a tip from a citizen from the field in the 24 cities and provinces across the country. This is my photo taken on December 16, 2006.Though I now stay at my desk very often, I completely agree with what the South Korean OhmyNews says “Every Citizen is a Reporter”. On November 24-28, I went to South Korea to join Asian Editors’ Forum organized by the Seoul-based Asian Journalists Association. The forum also discussed “Citizen Journalism”, including OhmyNews. OhmyNews is now spreading around the world. Journalists are citizens, so citizens can be journalists as well. Citizen journalism is for the public. It thinks, writes, and freely debates about the public issues and interests so that it can bring ideas for a good change with development in their communities.
While community and citizens are now more involving with each other, citizen journalism is really needed in our world, especially for breaking news. Media expect what is unexpected but who knows in advance what happens next such as crimes and natural disasters. Bombing, committing suicide, and other accidents very often occur and most of times, professional journalists are not at the scenes when incidents happen or they arrive late. So, photo and video journalists can miss their good pictures. They might find out if anyone has the pictures. It is, therefore, very unique for citizen journalists who are at the scenes. With their cell phones, citizen journalists can take pictures and though quality is not good enough, it is better than nothing. Let see the Tsunami in a few Asian countries in 2004. Were any professional newspersons at the scenes when it was happening? Many ordinary people shot photos through their cell phones and then passed to media to air on TVs and post on websites.
Citizen journalists can call radio newsrooms to directly report from the scene and professional journalists can update the stories respectively. Without citizen journalists in the fields, there is no immediate breaking news and no hot pictures. Citizen journalists can give their professional counterparts a tip so that professional newspersons are able to follow up and bring quality with accuracy and non-biased news. Citizen journalism is a spark from the grassroots to gear up a nation toward democracy and human rights. It is lightning to hit dictatorial world for public to gather and participate in society. It really responds to citizens’ questions and plays the key role in the democratic system. Citizen journalism is an educational center and a mean to collect concepts of citizens in communities for debate to reach common interest. It can be a voice of the voiceless and powerless. Without it, voice of communities at grassroots cannot be reached to top policy/decision makers. However, professional media organisations have to provide citizen journalists basic journalism and code ethics so that they can improve their news providing from the fields. END
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