Citizen Jounalism and its ethics: Ohmynews

Ohmynews is one of user-generated media sites in South Korea and it is operated by citizen journalists and professional journalists. OhMyNews gains 70 percent of its content from nearly 38,000 citizen reporters and 30 percent of professional journalists. (see Chris Murray’s post). In Ohmynews, people can write articles, comment on stories as well as debate and discuss issues, which are impossible in traditional mass media. The site was successful model not only because of being a pioneer in South Korea but also having citizen journalists and professional editors who filter the content. Ohmynews ‘empowers’ common people to report news with various perspectives, which mainstream media does not deal with, thus, Ohmynews is interactive and democratic.

However, although Ohmynews has positive views in terms of engaging common people into reporting news in different points of view, it involves ethical problems. In a Korean website (café.naver.com/navernewscast) where people can criticizes news reporting, I could find several posts that give critical comments on Ohmynews. They report news which is not true or which is not fair. In the point that those news could cause misunderstanding and confusion among people, ethical problems in Ohmynews cannot help being taken seriously. Due to common people are not professional at writing an article, they make couple of ethical problems though their perspectives are new and critical. Chris Murray notes some of criticisms on citizen journalsim; “Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be (Landseman, p. 2, 2005).” But the luster of the Internet’s promise is dulling for Drudge, who now speaks about Web 2.0’s potential in more disillusioned terms. “There’s a danger of the Internet becoming loud, ugly and boring with a thousand voices screaming for attention,” Like this, citizen journalism cannot be seen as perfect and faultless form of news media. In other word, news that citizen journalists report might have ethical problems in terms of thoroughness, accuracy, fairness, and independence(from readings).

In order to serve public trust and professionalism, a series of ethics and standards should be adopted for citizen journalists around the world and should be observed. Brynne Tuggle (see her post) claims that once citizen journalism has been widely accepted, it is followed by resposibility to the need of it. So, in order to be accountable for reporting news, What kinds of ethics do citizen journalists keep in mind?

1. See truth and do report
Before reporting, jornalists should clarify facts in order to seek truth and be fair news with having a sense of responsibility. Once their news are considered as reliable news, they can gain reputation in truthful reporting.

2. Respect people
Jounalists incline to overlook that subjects they report are human beings who deserve to be respected in order to get answers and they do report wihout kindness and respect.In this respect,ethical journalists should deal with sources, subjects and colleagues as respectable human beings.

3. Be independent
Citizen Journalists should not report according to the interests of centain associations, organisations and groups. They should not take any gifts, favors, or special treatment from them. They should report indepently for the public’s right to know.

It is really hard to keep them in mind and do it. However, these are basic code of ethics for being accountable citizen journalists, and these would help them to write truthful report for the public. As people are ‘empowered’ to report news, its ‘responsibility’ cannot be avoided.

What is 'Citizen Journalism'

As a variety of online social network media and technologies have been emerged, news report is no longer limited to traditional journalists’ work but it has extended to online citizens’ sphere. Youtube provides users innovative news channel called Citizen News where they can report and share news through. Many websites pursue citizen journalism, for example, Wordpress, Ohmynews(South Korea) and so on. Like this, Citizen journalists have been more and more powerful and influential on the news report with being called ‘Citizen Journalism’.

So what is 'Citizen Journalism'?

It is literally ‘citizens’ report news that is interesting for them, incorporating their own ideas and voice into the news (See ashleigh's article). Brynne Tuggle defines it as "the act of citizens playing an active role in process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information"

What is the most remarkable characteristic of citizen journalism?

In my opinion, the most distinctive point is that it aims at two-way interactivity, which means that online writers and readers mutually influence each other. While the conventional media journalists unilaterally provide news with little acceptance of readers’ feedback, citizen journalists speak out their voice and opinions and at the same time they allow readers to comment on their news. They are willing to share information and ideas bilaterally.

What makes me more interested in citizen journalism?

For me, interesting thing about citizen journalism is that it is an action ‘empowering people’. As one of example, Philly Future, which is a website that lists the best online writers, narrators, blogs, and commentators in the Philadelphia region, proclaims that its goal is to ‘empower people’ so that people can learn and communicate the diversity, history, sites, sounds, joys, concerns, and news of the region. (see about Philly Future) In the sense, I think citizen journalism is significant in terms of authorizing people to express their opinion broadly and at very low cost. Citizen journalism can work as watchdog criticizing biased and wrong news written by mainstream media journalist. In a nutshell, ‘Empowered people’ can challenge mainstream media seeing news in different perspectives. (see book ‘public journalism’ p.34-38)

Finally I made it!

Yeah!!